Niels van Deuren is the founder of HousingAnywhere.com a global platform which helps students studying abroad to rent places to stay in more than 60 countries and 300 cities.
FILMED IN ROTTERDAM, HOLLAND 2018
EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.
The globalized mobile student
When I went abroad in 2009. I studied in Singapore. I had to find an accommodation there in Singapore. In the hotel industry it is already very common that you can just go online and book something and you go.
Then I discovered that in the student housing it was not at all that case. I went looking for a room and it was very hard. Therefore I decided to set up my own platform, where people can just search for a room, book it and go abroad. Since 2009 I have been doing that, to support the mobile student.
What you see is that internationalization becomes more and more widespread in the universities. It is not only because it is fun, because I had an amazing time in Singapore.
It is also simply because the world economy goes really into the global direction. You see it in the businesses, every business operates internationally. You see it in the NGOs. NGOs are international. The art scene is very international. Everywhere where you go things gets more and more international.
It starts now at university. In the future it will go from kindergarten, to schools, to universities, to workplaces, to lifelong learning and everything is really involved in being international.
In a knowledge environment, international people will be attracted by that.
In a knowledge environment I see a hub and I see a city where international people like to go to.
You will see that dutch cities will not become only for dutch people and American cities will not only be for Americans. Cities, especially big cities will be for international people. Not specifically for refugees or so, but just
for people that like to live and work abroad. Those cities will become hubs.
People like to live in the city center witch is not possible, because there is a limited capacity in the city center. What I see is that people will also move to the suburbs of big cities. Suburbs will become mini-hubs in the big hub.
Suburbs will function as a hub but also universities, workplaces, airports, museum districts, bar areas. All those mini-hubs will be connected to each other. Transport is going to be very important to support knowledge environments that are attracted by international people.
What I also see is that those hubs should also facilitate a good combination between working, learning, leisure and transport. Especially the metro is very popular among international workers.
In conclusion where I see where future knowledge environments will go. I think knowledge environments should have an international mindset to attract the international worker.
Because international workers that is what you will see more and more.
Now you see it at the universities.In the future internationalization will already start at kindergarten and we should prepare our cities for that.
