IAESTE 72nd Annual Conference - Limassol, Cyprus
255 IAESTE members, alumni and guests from 78 countries came together for six intensive days, to exchange internships, discuss the future and strategic direction of our association, elect new Board Members, share knowledge, meet new and old friends, find new homes for the 70th Anniversary IAESTE Teddy Bears and to recharge our professional batteries for the next 12 months, all in the warming climate of Cyprus.
The IAESTE Cyprus team did an amazing job of hosting us in Limassol. It was an amazing week! It took us all a while to get back to normal life after the excitement of 72nd IAESTE Annual Conference.
Exchanged: 5647 internships
One of the main aims of IAESTE Annual Conference is to ensure that the core IAESTE activity of providing students with practical experience takes place. It’s the time to exchange offers and to meet exchange partners. At the time of closing the conference, 5647 offers were registered in the IAESTE Exchange Platform.
General Conference
Additionally, the 2019 General Conference sessions, chaired by Mr Leonardo Lobato, facilitated very important discussions about the future of IAESTE and set new goals. We welcomed IAESTE Qatar as an Associate Member and all members were committed, engaged for the whole week and five important Tasks Groups were created.
New IAESTE Board, Internal Auditors & GC Chairperson
The General Conference elected Prof. Karunakar Kotegar, Delegate of IAESTE India as a Board Member for 2019- 2021 and Mr Hossein Eftekhar, from IAESTE Iran as Board Member for 2019-2020.
Global IAESTE Forum+ & Marketing Fair
The Annual Conference was also an ideal moment for knowledge sharing and inspiration. This year we tried a new formula, organising two 2 hour-long sessions where we had presentations on topics such as twinning and knowledge sharing processes, successful working models with employers, using LinkedIn, cooperation with engineering association, Erasmus+ projects and more. Parallel to this was a Marketing Fair where marketing ideas and materials were shared.
James Newby Medal goes to…
This year IAESTE members and the IAESTE Board honoured Mark Feichtinger, the National Secretary of IAESTE Austria with the James Newby Award for all his efforts to develop IAESTE exchange and our association and for being a role model of IAESTE values.
Thank you Mark and congratulations!
Memories, Pictures & Summary
There is not enough space to summarise all the moments that happened during the week of the Annual Conference! Some highlights included: the auction of the IAESTE 70th Anniversary Teddy Bears at the Gala Dinner, General Conference discussions, exchange negotiations, the international evening, the karaoke event, the wonderful afternoon in Paphos and so much more!
8th Annual Alumni Conference
We were delighted that 18 alumni decided to take the time at their own expense to join us in Limassol for the 8th Annual Alumni Conference.
It was a fantastic weekend of fun and discussion about important topics related to how alumni can support IAESTE, as ambassadors, as well as helping to provide traineeships and the benefit of their experience. We learned a lot about each other, our motivations for being in contact with IAESTE and what practical steps can be taken to help IAESTE in the future.
During the weekend it was noticed that the beach at the hotel we were staying at had a lot of rubbish on it, maybe because of being out of season, so the alumni got together and cleaned up the beach! It was a great effort by everyone and we managed to leave our great surroundings a little better than how we found them.
Come join us at the 9th Annual Alumni Conference in Slovakia, next year!
