Several members of C³M participated in the NITIM Winter School at The Hague. NITIM is an international graduate school for research on Networks, Information Technology and Innovation Management (see also www.nitim.org). The Winter School 2016 offered not only multidisciplinary feedback to PhD projects from the NITIM faculty, but also an Employment Event and Final Conference for Marie Curie Initial Training Network "NITIMers".

Students shared evolutions of  their PhD dissertation ideas, proposals, and final writings in small group sessions with distinguished colleagues, consisting of both professors and other PhD students, from various disciplines who contributed ideas and input into their works. Robin Mays presented literature foundations for her research on the critical information needs of humanitarian practitioners. (Report: Valuing What Works, 2014). Roberto Rocha presented a case study protocol entitled “A case study on collaboration among Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders (MSF) and OpenStreetMap communities”. The main goals of this case are to understand how collaborative maps are being used in the preparedness and response phases of crisis/disaster, and to understand the role of volunteer technical communities, specifically for the Missing Maps Project, which provides the interface between MSF and OpenStreetMap communities. During the final conference,  NITIM fellows also presented their research topics in a three minute pitch. This pitch session offered an insightful overview of the innovative and mature PhD projects accomplished during the last three years in the context of the Marie Curie Initial Training Network Project.

On the evening of the first day, the Employment Event began with a life planning workshop designed by Dan McClure, Innovation Design Lead at ThoughtWorks. Dan introduced the audience to a future world in which universities, schools or any other kind of certification could become superfluous as formerly hidden competences would be revealed when block chains memorize every decision, every experience, or any action a person has made or learned. He focused on how young PhDs should prepare for the job market, and how this market differed to the one few years ago. In order to support the identification of individual strengths and preferences, Dan integrated the assessment of Gallup's Strengthsfinder, so that  participants could discover their own hidden strengths’- becoming “unicorns”. After becoming aware of their own “combination of superpowers”, Dan provided the audience with a pitch to make use of these in a working environment. 

The second part of the Employment Event included a discussion lead by Hayley Watson, Practice Manager at Trilateral Research London, who outlined her career path to PhD students. One guiding question of her talk was to ask “what to do after a PhD”, probably one of the most often raised questions by PhDs. She described her unique decisions and experiences followed by an overview of different possibilities to combine research from diverse fields into practice apart from the typical university track. Hayley not only offered the audience insights into careers both within and beyond academia but she also demonstrated how  “today's job market” puts the applicant's’ personality in the center of the recruitment process. Both organizations represented by Dan and Hayley, ThoughtWorks and Trilateral, became impressive examples of how the employers of tomorrow will operate.  

The conference portion of the event started with a keynote speech by Professor emeritus Tim Grant, who is an inspiration for young researchers. He proves that being retired is not the end to your research. He introduced the fellows to how sense-making is modeled in emergency management and why it is essential for dealing with the dynamic environment found in crisis management situations. With the experience he gained in academia, the military, and in industry, Tim actively contributes to science by visiting conferences relevant to the application domains surroundgin Command and Control, Emergency Management, and Offensive Cyber Operations.

The keynote speech followed by three talks from experienced researchers currently working directly or indirectly in the humanitarian sector. Starting off, Kim Anema, PhD fellow at UNESCO-IHE, presented her insightful work about community engagement in the Netherlands for the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society. Following, Bas Lijnse outlined his task-oriented programming tool, iTask System, set up for the Netherland Coast Guard and stressed the importance of flexibility within information systems design in crisis management. Finally, Rahel Dette, a junior consultant for internet and sustainability at the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), visualized the complexity and challenges of obtaining information (e.g. about needs) from dangerous environments.

The final day of the winter school was dedicated to reflecting  on the Marie Curie Initial Training Network, both from the fellow's point of view as well as from the supervisor's perspective. In accordance to these presentations, the C³M team - especially our ITN fellows Robin and Roberto - enjoyed the opportunity to conduct research the professional and multidisciplinary environment that NITIM provides.