Technological volunteering as an approach for service learning

Abstract

Entities with social purposes perform an essential task in our Society. They are often obliged to work with insufficient budgets that do not allow them to develop their projects with the necessary guarantees. In particular, they require computers and support from ICT experts in order to be able to fulfil their objectives in a society as technological as ours, in which changes in technology occur at a dizzying speed. In September, 2015, the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech launched an ICT volunteer program in the form of a pilot experience with students from the Schools of Informatics and Telecommunications. The program, an extra-curricular activity called Vol-ICT, is currently in its third edition. This program falls in a more ambitious one in which we aim to increase student retention by using Service Learning as a part of our university educational policy [1].