23 March, 2020

The world is currently experiencing an unprecedented situation, and as the situation worsened in Europe, Haizea, our Global Intern, decided to return home to the Basque Country, northern Spain, and continue to work from there.

Following Government instructions, CIT closed its doors on the evening of March 12 and staff started working from home. Since then, Haizea closely followed developments in her home country, specifically the problems that would arise if she wished to return there and flights were cancelled. After Irish politicians issued a notice to Irish tourists in Spain to return to Ireland before Thursday, March 19, Haizea made the decision to do the same ..... but the other way around.

The entirety of Spain is in a State of Emergency since March 14 and, therefore, its people are quarantined. They are only allowed out for essential activities such as buying food and medicine, going to work if essential and visiting banks/financial institutions. Taking this into account, Fomento San Sebastian and the Basque Government (organisers of the Global Training Internship) advised their Interns of the situation and allowed them to choose between remaining in the country in which they were doing their internship or returning home.

Haizea returned home and has been working from there since. Thanks to online work-sharing platforms, she has been able to continue with her work on the Hincks Centre's projects. She will be working from home for the remainder of her internship - until the end of May 2020.

Haizea making preparations for Beyond IoT 2020 in CIT's Melbourn Building, January 2020.

Although the Hincks Centre is currently closed, we are all working remotely. If you would like to contact us or if you have any queries, please email us at hincks@cit.ie.