Challenge: Alpine Smart Working: Your Office in the Mountains

Application deadline: March 21, 2022
Application deadline: March 21, 2022 (you will be redirected to the ECIU website)

Summary

Challenge provider Impact Hub, Trentino Social Tank, Cooperazione Trentina
Instructor Alessandra Scroccaro
Period 6th April + 6th-7th May 2022
Application deadline March 21, 2022
Challenge Alpine Smart Working
Challenge average workload 48h
ECTS 2

Background

In recent years, peripheral territories have often been considered as a dormitory, from which people commute daily to city centers. In the worst cases, people have to leave home in order to stay near their place of work. Small coworking spaces offer an alternative: people spend less time driving, thereby also contributing to reducing traffic and pollution, and don’t need to relocate to city centers, thereby improving their work-life balance.

The demand of workers for a flexible way of work is steadily increasing in this period: we are observing a growth in resignations, due to a bad life-work balance, and a switch to a “remote-first” approach by more and more companies.

Developing smart working is also a priority project for some PA, and Provincia Autonoma di Trento has recently approved its own strategic plan.

Despite these global tendencies, it is not easy to convince people and companies about the benefits of remote working:

  • many organizations (and workers) aren’t really ready for a change in general and this could be seen as a radical transformation;
  • preCOVIDly, coworking spaces were mainly used by (and offered to) freelancers or startup teams, thus they are often perceived as non-suitable to “normal office work”.

The challenge

Develop our description of possible customer segments, identifying key factors useful for “micro-targeting” and building a better value proposition (e.g. commuting key characteristics as distance and frequency, general interest services localization, pull/push migration factors, etc.). You’ll work in teams in order to:

  1. identify and define the target segment, key characteristics and problems to be solved;
  2. identify territorial KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to evaluate the creation of a coworking space;
  3. ideate strategies to communicate coworking’s value proposition.

Assessment

Since critical thinking and auto-reflection are one of the 21st Century skills and one of the most recommended capacities required by the job market (World Economic Forum, 2020), we will propose a new way of learning based on a self-directed approach and on the integration between a formative (individual and team tasks during the challenge) and a summative evaluation (final project presentation).

Self-directed approach foresees a full use of self-reflection tools. Final projects will be evaluated through different criteria, such as the solution’s feasibility and Commercial impact esteem.

Expected impact

Identify targets and key factors useful for “micro-targeting” and build a better value proposition for the customers, considering sustainability in all aspects:

  • Persons, brains, machines and jobs stay on the territory. We embank local “brain drain”. We prevent the use of cars and consequently we decrease the number of car accidents. People work in the most wonderful places in the world where they can enjoy the breathtaking landscape, and breathe clean and pure air (social sustainability);
  • Car commuting reduction. We prevent environmental, acoustic, visual, atmospheric pollution. We reduce the Carbon dioxide emission (environmental sustainability)
  • Fewer car accidents, more productivity, more happiness while working, etc. have an economic impact. Local communities, companies, environment, people have an Economic gain related to coworking (economical sustainability)

These are some examples of sustainable impacts due to coworking spaces use.

Schedule

  • 06/04/2022 at 19:00-21:00 | Challenge Kick-off | ONLINE.
  • End of April: Mentorship | ONLINE. Each team will be supported by 30 minutes of online mentorship, in preparation for the hackathon.
  • End of April (Not mandatory): Organized visits to Trento surroundings smart workplaces might be planned, based on the needs of participants and challenge providers, in order to collect information and data, and better understand the background and the context. Virtual visits can be organized for those who can’t participate in person.
  • 06/05/2022 at 9:00-22:30 | Start of the Hackathon activities| IN PERSON (Arrival to Trento on Thursday 05/05)
  • 07/05/2022 at 9:00-18:00 | Challenge Activities and Grand Finale| IN PERSON

How to apply

You need to apply on the ECIU platform. This only applies to challenges, since only challenges are jointly organized with ECIU.

Application deadline: March 21, 2022