BUas Facility Management student Lieke wins International Real Estate Challenge!

IREC is 2-week intensive challenge where a client is relocating its business in (one of the) European cities. The challenge connects students with different backgrounds – studying finance, architecture, business management and facilities management, from Bachelor to Master levels from different countries (from Slovakia to Finland). The intensive case assignment offers students the opportunity to not only apply their knowledge in a different setting, improve their cross-cultural communication skills but also establish a wide European network of contacts, including real estate professionals. The challenge is organized by Real Estate Center (REC) which is a center of international expertise in Real Estate at the Politecnico di Milano.

Kick off in Milan

The challenge kicked off at the Politecnico in Milan (Italy). All 50 participants (from 6 countries) were welcomed by Marzia Morena (Professor in Management of Built Environment, POLIMI). The first day was all about getting to know each other, receiving the assignment, and meeting the team.

Lieke: ‘The first days in Milan we worked on our strategic brief - a list of clients’ wishes and our interpretation of those. Our team was assigned to the city Prague, so we then went to Prague for the next phase of the challenge: field research.

Off to Prague

In Prague the team was accompanied by coach Martin Čásenský (Senior lecturer Czech Technical University in Prague) and Josef Stanko the Real Estate Research Analyst of Colliers. Students received lectures, insights of facility and real estate development in Prague and visited three companies. The team decided to work with project Port7 for their challenge and made sure they had gathered all the information needed to continue the challenge back in Milan.

And back to Milan

Lieke: ‘Based on the client wishes and our developed criteria for a location and property, we had to choose the most suitable project for the case assignment. We needed to think about all the aspects of this project – from finance, to design, to infrastructure, to community building. Never in the past have I learned so much from one particular assignment!’

Different cultures

Lieke: ‘Working in a group can bring difficulties, but the end goal for all is the same - winning the competition. The difference in people, their cultures, and stepping out of your comfort zone can therefore be challenging, but because of the main interest it never turns out to be a problem.’

And the winner is…

All eight groups presented their findings and the best four had to present their ideas to an industry jury. Lieke: ‘It was a nice surprise to hear that our Team Prague was the winning team of IREC 2023!’

Unforgettable experience

Lieke: ‘All in all, it has been an unforgettable experience! It allowed me to speak with experts in this field, from companies like RICS, Colliers and CBRE, and learn from teachers from all different universities. The set-up is super welcoming, teachers, students, and experts are open to meet new people and talk about their experiences. Besides the well-considered assignment and the very good organisation with regards to project visits and network events, I have experienced growth on a personal level as well. Participating in this challenge shows the ability to work in an international setting and the flexibility to work with all sorts of people, with different cultural and educational backgrounds. Besides all these wise words, there was a lot of fun and joy within the group, which contributes to the unforgettable experience! I would recommend participating in IREC if you are interested in Real Estate and international working environments and would like to further explore this.’