Sessions on IC

What are we actually doing on IC? We talked about country meeting, about parties, about the opening… but what are actually the sessions all about? I want to give you a brief impression on how sessions look like.

The first days of IC have been focussing a lot on the external trends. We had many workshops on sustainability, workshops by external partners, many key note speakers and panelists from diverse and interesting backgrounds, we discussed our personal ideas and goals and exchanged ideas how we can contribute to a better world. In this context we also discussed the position, role, and relevance of AIESEC.

We also took part in the Alumni Congress celebrating AIESEC’s 60^th anniversary, which was organized as a huge Open Space, giving us opportunity to get to know our alumni, being inspired by their stories and how they continued their way after their time in AIESEC. The Open Space was hosted by one of the founding fathers of “Art of Hosting”, which was great to see, how an professional Open Space looks like.

Since yesterday, the IC started to focus a lot more on current AIESEC issues. The word of this conference is certainly “growth”. So yesterday we got introduce to a number of growth strategies and heard several examples of countries who have successfully made use of them.

Today we will have workshops to explore these growth strategies further. I’m looking forward to these workshops although I’m not sure, whether I agree with everything that is proposed there. Throughout the last days we have become increasingly sceptical concerning the aggressive way some people/countries promote growth. Nevertheless it is very interesting to see which ways some countries find to position themselves, to set up partnerships, to explore key markets, and to improve their performance. We collect many ideas what might work in Germany as well.

Compared to our conferences, the sessions during IC are a lot more up-front. We are presented fancy movies, long speeches and one power-point after another. I guess, this is the global way of transmitting content, I personally would wish for more opportunities to discuss issues in groups. Instead, we usually have just “sharing rounds”. Good Case Practises take an important role, which are often very interesting. The discussions take place in breaks and during the parties.

Greetings from Brazil!

Birte