The IIE’s Varsity College and DigsConnect have announced an exciting and strategic partnership aimed at alleviating student accommodation challenges. This collaboration will provide students with an online platform where they will be able to access varying types of safe accommodation options within an 8-kilometre radius to all eight of The IIE’s Varsity College campuses.
DigsConnect, South Africa’s largest online student accommodation marketplace, will be available to students through our website – a platform the students are already using extensively for a variety of online student services. Students will be able to make use of the DigsConnect online platform (www.digsconnect.com) to create accounts, filter their searches by prices, as well as the type of accommodation that they would prefer. In addition, existing students will be able to advertise for housemates.
Says Louise Wiseman, Managing Director of The IIE’s Varsity College: “We are committed to providing our students with a holistic tertiary experience, which will now include access to a professional online accommodation marketplace. We have spent a number of years seeking an answer to our student accommodation challenges. We work with a number of accommodation providers already, but this partnership will allow us to bring them all under one umbrella. DigsConnect began in Cape Town and has been extending its services to other cities which works for us, given our national footprint. It is our hope that, in the not too distant future, we will also be able to provide accommodation options that are limited to just The IIE’s Varsity College students, through DigsConnect.”
The partnership allows for a verification process whereby The IIE’s Varsity College will aim to ensure that the properties being listed by landlords on DigsConnect meet standard criteria, in order to remain on the institution’s listings. Ultimately the relationship is between landlord and student, but the IIE’s Varsity College will use the association to consolidate options and thus make finding safe, suitable accommodation as convenient as possible.
All IIE Varsity College students using the DigsConnect platform will be maintained on a communications platform so that a real sense of community can be created as a kind of ‘virtual residence” for all. Additional features are envisaged over time.
DigsConnect was established two years ago by “accidental entrepreneur” and UCT Alumnus Alexandria Procter as a fresh and modern solution to the perennial student housing crises that affected a significant number of students across South Africa.
Click here to our student accomodation page.