Alumni Newsletter #1

Prominent MED Webinar

On the 29th of July, a Webinar was hosted to present the results of this project and to discuss its themes. Throughout 36 months, 9 partners from 5 different countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia and France) worked together in order to improve capacities and connections between actors applying Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) to stimulate the research and the development of innovative solutions in the field of energy efficiency. Prominent MED achieved satisfying results, with one of its projects even placing as a finalist in the Procura+ awards.

This month:

Prominent MED

COVID 19
and Climate Change

Interview
with our Interns

Our interns tips
for working from home

"Despite the distance, there is always someone available to provide some guidance and the general atmosphere is very positive"

Rose Leal

COVID-19 and climate change

Although the current pandemic is still not fully controlled, many countries have passed the stage of a full lockdown, like earlier this year. And now we are able to reflect upon the impact of this unprecedented situation. During the lockdown, the world experienced the biggest carbon crash ever recorded, with estimations signaling a 4-8% decrease in warming gas emissions this year alone. However, this will have a very small impact on the climate crisis, with global warming cut by just 0.01C by 2030, a study has found.

Although the impact is small, the results are still notable, considering the short amount of time accounted. However policies such as lockdowns are impossible to maintain. That´s why government funding for a green recovery after the pandemic is so important. By investing in an economic recovery towards green stimulus and prioritizing renewable sources of energy instead of fossil fuel, it might be possible to come closer to meeting the goals established by the Paris climate agreement and help economies throughout the world to recover.

Interview with our interns

This year, internships are being different than usual. At the beginning of March we started quarantining due to the rise of cases of COVID-19 in Portugal.

For about 2 to 3 months, IrRADIARE team worked from home, teleworking, never giving up on the interns that had started their internship before this situation.
These internships had a particularity: distance. It was the first time that the company did these remote internships and it was a challenge for all of us, but also a learning process as well.

For a lot of interns this is the first time they are in touch with the market so it was hard to get used to this new work reality, where you only meet each other throughout online meetings.

We asked the interns to talk about their experience and all the answers had one thing in common: the thankful feeling that the company still did the internships program even though the ongoing situation wasn’t ideal.

“We got the chance to do an internship even in such kind of conditions, everyone from the company is open to discussions at any working hour, and we have these "momentos de convívio" that I really like.”
- Elena Vishniakova, International Relations Department

Every week we have these “chill moments” where all the team and interns join in a video call to talk about all kind of funny things or to just play games and have a laugh . This definitely helped to make the internships more diverse and close to what it would've been if it was presential. “Despite the distance, there is always someone available to provide some guidance and the general atmosphere is very positive.”
- Rose Leal, Project Development Department

"It's been going well, the staff is very sociable and cool, willing to help whenever necessary and I'm really enjoying this experience even though I'm working with new things, I'm really enjoying it"
- Tomás Marques, IT Department

All the interns we had the chance to talk, said that Communication is definitely the key for the sucess of these remote internships. Some confessed that at the beginning they were apprehensive that this wasn’t going to work or to be as faithful as if it was presentially, but changed their mind as soon as the internships began.
IrRADIARE is doing a great job with us, I say us because i’m also a intern and I support all the opinions related here.
Something that seemed hard or impossible is now our daily reality. We work trough our computers, at home, remotely and some of us don’t even know each other personally, but it has been such a great experience for all of us. Communication is key!

Our interns tips
for a distance internship

When you're working from home, you might struggle to be productive. It's hard to do everything you need when you're tempted by your tv, your pet or your bed. That's why we came up with some tips from our experience to help you be productive while at home!

Our first tip is to keep your workspace organized! This may seem obvious, but having an organized workspace will make you more comfortable while working which improves your productivity.

Another thing that might improve your productivity is making a daily schedule. By developing a routine and managing your time not only is it easier to work, but it also gives you more time to do other activities.

We often find ourselves with a lot of different tasks to accomplish at the same time. Managing that can be difficult, that's why it's important to make a list of your tasks for the day/ week. By doing so it´ll be a lot easier to achieve all your objectives on time!

Deadlines can be stressful, especially when you're not being as productive as you wanted to. When you find yourself in this situation, it might be better to just take a break. Doing so will help you relax and even make you more productive once you're back to work.

Working at home might feel lonely, but that doesn't mean you're alone. Teamwork is really important in order to achieve our goals, so remember to stay in contact with the rest of the team as much as possible and don't forget to attend the chill moments every Friday.

That way you get relax, have fun and know your colleagues better!