ESTIEM Magazine | Autumn 2007 | The World's Economy

Issue 33 2007/2 | ISSN 0874-5242 | Price 0 Euro | www.estiem.org

ESTIEMMAGAZINE The World’s Economy

Put the Pieces together!

European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management

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INTRODUCTION Editorial President’s Speech Introduction to ESTIEM

NEWS What can ESTIEM do for companies?

Travel Trophy Visionary Marketing Student Guide Do some IT-ing Europe 3D TIMES Project & Committee Something new: LR Parade

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 16

18 20 23 26

EVENTS CM Eindhoven Pre-CM Groningen Adventures of Yogi Bear Activity Week Serbia IFISO Meeting Final Conference Famagusta FREE Vision Paderborn

3 TABLE OF CONTENTS

4 5 6

FOCUS FOCUS CEFTA, a warm up to the European Union Derivative of Lİfe Turkey - Hot spot Outsourcing

28 29 30 32 34 35 36

PROFESSIONAL

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Qimonda. An insight of the IE scope in the semiconductor Industry

INSIDE ESTIEM Magazine Project Leader 2006 39 Student Guide Project Leader 2006 40 TIMES Project Leader 2006 41 Alumni Report 42 Culture Prejudice: Turkey 44 What’s Happening in Local Group Bucharest? 45 AGENDA

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4 iNTRODUCTION imprint Project Leader: Katarina Gavric Editorial Staff: Huseyin Binzat Didem Boz Ceren Donmez Katarina Gavric Ignacio J. Pérez Prat Eleanor Smith Isıdora Strboja Layout: Sezen Sayoglu Ignacio J. Pérez Prat David Christian Berg Design: David Christian Berg Public Relations Comittee Acquisition: Ürün Cakirca Katarina Gavric Ugur Gürler Julian Schiffner Ignacio J. Pérez Prat Contact: magazine@estiem.org www.magazine.estiem.org Disclaimer: The contents may not always reflect the opinion of the publisher.

Any reproduction or copy is permitted only with the permission of the editors.

Partners of ESTIEM:

katarına gavrıc

Life is a Puzzle!

Since we are living in an era of fast industry development, where the economic situation is changing every day, the main task of this topic is to show that the world is made of different pieces which put together the economic puzzle of today. While discussing this matter, we can only name a small part of its aspects since there are so many of them.

The automotive industry, for example, faced many challenges during past few years. Higher ecological standards on exhaust gases imposed by the EU, changing design demands, constant unionmanufacturers conflicts etc, are examples of a list of tasks which are not easy to follow.

Looking ahead, demographic changes in the next 50 years will affect the world economy in many ways. Some of these effects will be beneficial. In developing countries, for example, falling birthrates will enable women to get more paid labor and families will be able to invest more in the education of each child.

Other demographic changes will cause economic problems.

In developed countries, aging population is likely to imply that government pension systems cannot continue with their current rules. Population growth in developing countries could also change patterns of world trade and thereby reduce the wages of some workers in developed countries.

Looking back 50 years ago, it seemed like the liberation of the colonies would bring the long awaited prosperity of those countries, but the situation has not much changed today. The former colonial-power countries are still the largest users of resources and natural goods, leaving little behind for others.

ESTIEM Permanent Office Paviljoen B-6 P.O. Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands Fax: 0031- (0)40 2473871 e-mail: info@estiem.org www.estiem.org

Bearing all that in mind, one must consider many aspects when reflecting on such a complex topic, since economy is in every pore of modern human conduct.

At the end, do not forget that we are part of organisation which put together so many different pieces into one puzzle, the ESTIEM puzzle.

In high ESTIEM,

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Dear Readers of the ESTIEM Magazine,

What comes to your mind when you think about the term “World Economy”? The first thing I am thinking about as a European Student of Industrial Engineering and Management is one of the most valuable property we have in the world: Our environment.

The need to save our environment is big and finally humans feel completely responsible for damaging the earth. Greenhouse gas emissions play an impotant role since they are the biggest driver of the climate change. This problem is addressed by the Kyoto protocol, which was adopted in December 1997. It sets legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions in industrialised countries and focusses on innovative marketbased mechanisms aimed at keeping the cost to decrease emissions low. Unfortunately the protocol is not yet into force as it demands that 55% of the world’s CO2 emissions are represented by all countries who ratified the protocol.

for the economy. Therefore an efficient emission trading concept and ongoing innovation are essential.

Philipp Bächle

President’s Speech

introduction

The environment will not loose its importance and maybe once you will find yourself in the situation to deal with this topic. In general the World Economy and its interrelations are definitely also a challenge for our professional life. And especially Industrial Engineering and Management serves us a perfect basis to cope with this kind of challenges.

But under the Kyoto Protocol, the EU committed itself to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 8% during the first commitment period till 2012.

Therefore the EU moves ahead with one flexible mechanism and sets up its own internal emission trading system. This system is legally binding and the energy-intensive companies have to follow set limits on CO2 emissions. The system will induce companies to decrease their emissions. But at the same time this will be done at the lowest costs

Source European Commission > Environment > Climate Change http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/home_en.htm

introduction

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Back in 1990,

students from five different countries founded an organisation which they named ESTIEM: European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management. Its aim was and still is to establish and foster interrelations among European students of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM).

In 16 years, it has grown into an organisation bringing together 45 0 00 students from 65 universities in 23 European countries, and is still growing. All these universities offer courses in IEM. Based on this structure, ESTIEM forms links between students, academics and companies in order to create a Europe-wide, multi-level IEM network.

cultures, take part in international projects and become friends with other ESTIEMers from all over Europe. Our belief is that the activities and projects of ESTIEM give our members knowledge and experiences that are important for their personal development and the realisation of future goals. The students involved in ESTIEM incorporate both the skills required for modern business and an open-minded approach towards other people and cultural issues.

The decision-making body of ESTIEM is the Council, which meets twice a year, in autumn and in spring. Each university, represented by its socalled ‘Local Group’, sends two student representatives. The five members of the Board of ESTIEM are elected during the autumn Council Meeting.

The Board is responsible for the management, coordination and administration of the association. It represents the association in all legal matters.

ESTIEM has continuously increased the number of its activities, thus being able to offer a great variety of events to IEM students. Based on its activities, ESTIEM has attracted many active students, and the organisation has seen rapid growth since its founding. Major activities on a European level besides Council Meetings include the only European wide IEM case competition TIMES, the seminar series Vision, ESTIEM Magazine, Venture Network, Europe 3D, Summer Academy and Student Guide (a database with information for students who want to study abroad); all led by Project Leaders who are elected at the Council Meetings.

Through involvement in ESTIEM, students get an opportunity to experience different

Besides taking leadership positions in the Board and as Project Leaders, ESTIEM members can also take up more responsibility by working in one of the committees. The committees work together closely with the Board, supporting it in its tasks. ESTIEM has six of them at the moment: the

Introduction

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CM CoM, ReCoM

Information and Communication Technology Committee, the Public Relations Committee, the Members Committee, the Knowledge Management Committee, the Financial and Legal Committee and ESTIEM’s youngest asset, the Corporate Relations Committee.

With lots of teams and tasks to choose from, there is a place for everyone. Naturally, the backbone of ESTIEM is the European IEM student. Open-minded and keen on developing him or herself, he or she is eager to make friends and create contacts with different IEM representants from all over the continent.

When ESTIEM was founded, the aim was to make it an abbreviation-free association. However, this goal was not completely achieved… After all, “CM” fits much better in your mouth than “a Council Meeting”. The table at the right offers a brief introduction to the most common ESTIEM abbreviations.

INTRODUCTION

Council Meeting. Organised twice a year, this general meeting of member groups holds the ultimate decision-making power in ESTIEM. Coordination Meeting, Regional Coordination Meeting. An event where a small group of people get together for a Project Meeting or a meeting of Local Groups in a particular region.

CRC

Corporate Relations Committee. Responsible for adding value to relationships between ESTIEM and its current and potential corporate partners.

FLC

Financial and Legal Committee. Members of this committee have an advisory function for those who are responsible for financial or legal affairs in ESTIEM.

KMC

Knowledge Management Committee. This committee ensures that all knowledge is preserved and that experiences don’t get lost during handover periods or when people resign from their active ESTIEM career.

LG Local Group. ESTIEM is basically a network of these IEM student associations located at different universities around Europe.

LR Local Responsible. The person in charge of a LG. MC

Members Committee. This team supports the member groups of ESTIEM and provides information to those who are interested in joining the ESTIEM organisation.

PL,CL Project Leader, Committee Leader. PL is the person in charge of an ESTIEM project. Analogously, Committee Leader is designated with CL. PRC

Public Relations Committee. Concerned with ESTIEM’s outer appearance and increasing the awareness of ESTIEM among companies, professors, as well as IEM students throughout Europe.

SAC

The Summer Academy Project. This project organises a two-week event, of which two editions are held somewhere in Europe each summer. The event is highly academic and guided by a well-known professor.

TIMES WG

Tournament in Management and Engineering Skills.

Working Group. In Council Meetings, several Working Groups are formed to discuss different crucial ESTIEM matters.

WGL Working Group Leader. A person who is in charge of the WG. He or she plans, guides the members and prepares the documentation.

For more detailed information about our organisation and its activities, please visit our website at www.estiem.org.

Here you can also find everything you need to know if you want to get involved. So don’t hesitate and start moving… you won’t regret it! 

ESTIEM is an exiting network of open-minded students with a professional approach

n to ESTIEM

8 news

Don’t ask what companies can do for ESTIEM, ask what can ESTIEM do for companies!

Andreas vennemAn

A way for ESTIEM to become a more integral part of life and personal development for industrial engineering and management (IEM) students is to establish and maintain partnerships with more companies and institutions. By doing so, ESTIEM can offer more events for its constituents and improve the quality of the already existing ones. The goal of the organisation should be to increase the total number of participants as well as increasing the awareness and recognition of the organisation. If this could be achieved more IEM students would benefit from the work of the organisation and much of ESTIEM’s vision and goals could be realised.

In order to establish long lasting relationships, we need to emphasise the value a potential partner can gain from cooperating with ESTIEM. From the perspective of a partner, involvement with ESTIEM should by no means be seen as charity. Instead a partnership ought to be seen as an engagement with high return on investment. How can we accomplish this? I believe we should be looking for prospective partners that can truly benefit from an organisation like ours.

Many companies nowadays claim that they are global in all aspects of their business, nonetheless, it turns out when talking about recruitment and university cooperation that much of the activity seems to take place on a very local level, occasionally on country’s regional level, but seldom Europe-wide.

Let that not hinder with our regarding of Europe (beyond current EU) as one large market. We should pursue potential partners to look into the benefits of pan-European thinking, may it be that they today do not have a central HR department in Europe.

Impediments are to be overcome, so let us go out and find those companies and institutions that understand the true value of a European view. 

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NEWS

Travel Trophy: Episode II As you all know, the Local Group Ankara-Bilkent was honored with the Travel Trophy at the Council Meeting Eindhoven, which is given to the most active local group of the past year.

Let us start with some flashbacks. Our Industrial Engineering and Management club was founded in 1992 but it was not very active until we discovered ESTIEM and decided to be a part of it. We got our observership in 1999 and became a full member the following year at the Council Meeting Cambridge. Thereafter, our activeness started to climb up rapidly, we had only five participants during first years, but now we have more than a hundred participants over Europe and we gained the ability to organise big events like the Council Meeting Ankara which we determined its motto as the best Council Meeting ever.

How ESTIEM could change our fate? First of all, ESTIEM became a perfect example for us, in terms of organisational structure, activities to arrange among other points. In addition, ESTIEM is really a good tool to attract and motivate new members. Undoubtedly, the knowledge transfer from ESTIEM to us via our members who took part in ESTIEM was the other important factor.

Despite all, this was the easy part of our adventure. The the rougher part of the way is waiting in front of us.

Our second strategy is canalising our activity and manpower to contribute to ESTIEM and other local groups. We want to create new ideas, projects and new concepts in oder to increase our activity level in ESTIEM and other local groups starting with Turkish ones. We aim to work on more collective projects and concepts with them.

Strengthening our communication with other local groups is the other expected achievement for us. These efforts will also strengthen the ESTIEM network.

To sum up, as members of the most active local group, Ankara-Bilkent, we are aware of our important position and our responsibility within ESTIEM. By achieving the goals that I have mentioned, we want to bring ESTIEM one step forward. Keep watching us. 

omer faruk yurdusever

You all heard about us and our ESTIEM adventure from the previous Travel Trophy article, so I do not want to bore you with details, I will just quickly move on our ESTIEM journey. I would like to talk more about our future plans and our effort to keep our position on the top.

As you know, it is harder to keep the position than achieving this position. I would like to talk about our future plans in order to keep our activeness up like today .

In order to stay as active as today and to bring it a step forward, we want to create a new structure in this term. This term will have two key strategies. The first one is renewing the known old generation. We want to attract as much new members as possible and have them gain activeness in ESTIEM. We want to make them not only participants but also project and committee members. However, we do not intend to retire the older generation because their experience, knowledge and memories are important for us.

We want a soft transition from the older generation to younger one. We also want to organise activities where both generations can meet, where the experienced ones share their memories and knowledge with young ones.

NEWS

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Visionary Marketing Gonenç Keskintepe

Vision consists of three to five days long seminars that are organised in different ESTIEM Local Groups every autumn and spring semester. The seminars are a combination of workshops, lectures, case exercises and of course, cultural activities. Each time a Vision takes place, between 15 and 30 students from all around Europe gather in one place. Vision’s main objective is to be educative, and at the same time the local students and universities give an excellent insight to different cultures around our continent.

THE SEMINARS Gothenburg, 18th – 23rd September 2007 Do it the Swedish Way Skopje, 18 th – 23rd October 2007 Do it right, do it with Vision–Customer Satisfaction Brussels, 18 th – 21st November 2007 European Marketing Berlin, 24th – 27th November 2007 Marketing through New Media Kaiserslautern–Karlsruhe, 3rd – 9 th December By the time you read this article, the Vision series 2007 Marketing in the Network Economy Cambridge, 10 th – 15th January 2008 will have already started and probably some of you Branded – The Importance of Branding and where already at some of the seminars. Hence I do not Product Design in the 21st century need to explain to those people the experience of a Helsinki, 6th – 10 th of February Vision Seminar.

Marketing as a Part of Corporate Strategy Trondheim, 19 th – 24th of February But for those, who have not been at a Visionary Big Thinking in a Small Country Marketing Seminar, let me explain why they should participate in a Vision seminar especially when the topic Grenoble, 25th – 30 th of March Marketing in the White Gold is about competitive marketing in the Europe.

Linköping, Mar 30 th – Apr 3rd of March Functional Sales – a New Marketing Concept The first and the most serious reason for it is that the topic “Marketing” covers lots of aspects: from the inter- Eindhoven, 18th – 23th of April Marketing of High Innovative Products nal strategic planing of a company to customer satisfac Warsaw, 7th – 11th of May 2008 tion. What is more, the obvious fact is that Marketing Final Conference Promotion and advertisement has been an important tool for the economy. On the in production companies other hand, there are many different ways to meet new

cultures to make new friends and also to spend some of the free time socialising with those students present at the Vision.

To conclude, I would like to finish my words related with the topic of this Magazine: “If the World is a puzzle, then the Vision seminars help you discover as many pieces of it as possible!” 

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News

Broaden your Horizon

If you look at web page, you will see a description of it: The Student Guide is a service provided to all ‘Industrial Engineering and Management’ (IEM) students interested in studying in Europe at a university with a high quality of IEM education. With the Student Guide, ESTIEM promotes intercultural and academic exchanges within Europe in a time where borders are disappearing. Today, there is a lack of comparison of universities across borders. Therefore, ESTIEM has taken on the challenge to discover the differences in IEM studies across all of Europe with the Student Guide.

The Student Guide has two main goals: 1) to provide study and cultural information on countries, cities, and universities to IEM universities and 2) to give an overview of differences in IEM education in different countries and make this available to students, universities and other interested organisations.”

This is the summary of why this Project was created. However, the question of what we are doing to reach those goals might come up your mind. We have three tasks to achieve that aim.

Those are updating our new website (www.studentguide.estiem.org), publishing the Student Guide Handbook (which is available in PDF format in our website) and giving an exact shape to the University Open Days.

Our website is the basic tool for you to get information about the Student Guide Project

and universities that provide IEM education. We keep updating our website regularly with the new coming information from different universities.

To do that, we prepared a questionnaire and sent it to the Local Responsibles in our ESTIEM Local Groups. Now we are waiting for the answers from our kind Local Responsibles and are updating our website in the light of the given information (if you are a Local Responsible reading this article and still did not fill in the questionnaire, we are waiting for your answer). Moreover we are trying to find information of other universities which are not part of the ESTIEM network but provide IEM education.

The Student Guide handbook is another task for us. With this handbook, we try to provide basic information about the Student Guide Project, new exchange opportunities and different experiences from exchange students. As soon as we collect those experiences, the next step will be to publish them.

Organising the University Open Days is our third task. Our work on developing a certain concept for it is still on process. At this point, I would like to thank Local Group Porto for their efforts, but unfortunately they had to cancel it due to lack of participants. I personally hope that we develop it to be one of the golden events of ESTIEM. In addition to these tasks, we are always looking for sponsorship and new faces. If you have any questions or comments, you can always contact us. Do not hesitate to send us an e-mail to studentguide@estiem.org! 

kartal tasoglu

Hi ESTIEMers, my name is Kartal Tasoglu and I am the Project Leader of the Student Guide since the Council Meeting in Eindhoven. I would like to thank the Magazine Project for giving me the chance to introduce the Student Guide Project. So let’s start with what the Student Guide is.

NEWS

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Do Some IT-ing philipp lehnert

When I remember the times I started in ESTIEM, I hear a voice saying “transparency is dead!”. Regardless whether that was meant seriously or not, transparency should rise from the dead again. That was my first thought when I overtook the position of the Committee Leader of Information Technology from Thijs Putman in the beginning of this year.

And I can tell you, in my eyes there was no transparency at all in IT. There were servers standing in different places doing a whole lot of difficult stuff for the website, the e-mail system and a lot of other things in the background that I did not even have a clue of.

But what should I do to make this obscure system, that looked like a mess to me, more transparent? “Let us start from scratch, take an open source content management system for the website, some basic mailing software and get rid of everything we don’t need.” That is what we thought about during the first Coordination Meeting in Karlsruhe. But we had to recognise pretty soon that actually there was indeed much sense behind this complexity that looked totally

over-engineered in the beginning. No open content management system could fit our needs, having different servers really made sense in some ways and our “Master of E-Mails”, Frank Segtrop, from Berlin taught me, in very long e-mails and discussions on the phone, that there is no ‘simple’ solution for an ESTIEM e-mail server.

So Helmuth Elsner and Frank Segtrop with their complex, non-transparent IT elements were from the beginning more than right to tell me that we cannot easily simplify things. The plans had to be thought over again. I do not want to bother you with the technical details, but we all agreed that we should make our IT systems as transparent as they can be without reducing the functionality and that we should also take better care of documentation and tutorials to show ESTIEMers how to use the our intranet, the ESTIEM Portal.

This brings me to the next topic that I wanted to take care of during my time as a Committee Leader of IT: Using the Portal, our intranet.

Right now, the level of activity on the ESTIEM Portal could be higher. More internal news could be written, the forums are not used at full capacity and the active core of people working on the portal is pretty small. To change that, we have planned some modifications to make the ESTIEM Portal more attractive. We will put more focus on the people, the community that actually forms ESTIEM. A “buddy list” as some of you might know it from “facebook.com” and improved photo pages are two examples of things with which we want to make the portal better and at the same time, a cutting-edge platform.

Be a bit patient, we are working hard to make things better for you! 

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News NEWS

Dresden Initiates!

With a gala dinner in the historic city of Dresden and a big party afterwards, the seminar called “europe3D” ended on Saturday 5th of May, which had been organised by the Local Group Dresden.

In addition the participants could also find out about German food, for example at a typical German breakfast.

“Europe3D” was made possible by a fantastic project team and various sponsors.

The aim of the seminar was not only to show the European students the German culture and way of life but also to spark interest in the business location Germany and Saxony.

This was the kick-off event and hopefully ESTIEM and its students can profit from more Europe3D events to learn about cultural differences in Europe!

For four days more than 20 ESTIMers from all over Europe had been learning about different aspects of Germany.

Based on the three pillars – politics, economy and culture – the project team, which was lead

by Katrin Kraemer and supported by our patron Holger Krahmer, developed a diverse agenda with a company visit at BMW in Leipzig, presentations in the parliament of Saxony and an intercultural training about Germany’s cultural characteristics.

Thanks to all participants that made it an unforgettable event.

Find out more information about the project on its website at www.europe3d.estiem.org. 

Sımon donges

From the beginning of the seminar on, the ESTIEM-spirit spread and the participants together with the organisation team formed a unit, which was very interested in the topics, asked many questions in the discussions and had of lot of fun together in Dresden’s nighlife.

NEWS

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CHRISTIAN SEYFARTH

NORA ROSENDAH L

TIMES is under new leadership! Again? That shouldn’t sound terribly surprising, since both the project itself and so its younger sibling, the Committee, are meant to change their management anyway after a period of twelve months. But in addition, TIMES in general will undergo a makeover in various areas in this year’s issue.

After Nora Rosendahl from Helsinki succeeded Deniz Aslan from Istanbul ITU as Project Leader and Christian Seyfarth from Ilmenau succeeded Heikki Saukola from Helsinki as Committee Leader, a fresh wind is blowing in ESTIEM’s prestigious project, just in time for the up-andcoming summer period. The Project Leader herself will focus on the shorter term projects and the Committee will concentrate on balancing the development of TIMES over a longer timescale.

Last but not least, with the majority of the original Committee members retiring from active work, a lot of new, ambitious faces have appeared on the scene. Experienced former members, such as former TIMES organisers will nonetheless stay in the background and act as consultants for both the TIMES organisers and the central level members.

The best way to describe what is currently going on and what will happen in the near future within TIMES, is probably to explain the content of the TIMES Kick-Off Meeting in Karlsruhe.

After officially commencing the latest cycle of ESTIEM’s most prestigious project in Karlsruhe from 15th to 17th June 2007, the squad which consists of the Committee and the project itself, is now ready and well prepared to lead TIMES to success again.

Project But what exactly did we do in Karlsruhe to make that happen, to create a decent set-up for the competition? It was initially considered to be the Handover Meeting for both the new Project Leader, Nora Rosendahl, and the new Committee Leader, Christian Seyfarth. It was originally suggested that Nora and Christian should meet with the Vice President of Activities, Olivier Zimmer from Brussels, to discuss issues around the project and exchange experiences from last year’s competitions, but then the idea of expanding the number of panellists was introduced. Ultimately, the Final Organisers from Karlsruhe, together with two more Board Members and one more active member of the Committee attended the meeting.

The main topics of discussion were the new idea around sponsorship, which Nora brought to the table, as well as the ambition of creating a separate TIMES website. Following that, many minor issues which occur again every year, such as the organisation of a TIMES Coordination Meeting and TIMES related PR material were considered.

The first vital issue to review was a new idea for a central sponsor search. This idea arose after attempts to obtain one central head sponsor had failed over the last couple of months. TIMES will

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& Committee now concentrate its efforts on receiving support from several companies and gathering them into some kind of ‘partner pool’ to ensure financial stability and to lower the risks that arise when a sponsor resigns from active support of a project.

For these reasons Europe has mentally been divided into six regions, with the aim being to persuade one company in each region to support both their local Semi Final or Final and the project on a central level. Any approach to the companies themselves will initially be performed by the Semi Final organisers, followed by the Final organisers, and driven by a sponsorship proposal created at the central level. This proposal’s content was discussed and agreed upon during the meeting in Karlsruhe.

The second and no less significant topic debated during the meeting in Karlsruhe was the creation of an external TIMES website. This website should, following the thoughts of the TIMES reps, not be included in the ESTIEM portal but still emphasise the strong bonding between TIMES and ESTIEM. One major trigger for the development of a separate website was that the current TIMES section in the external pages of the portal does not reflect the organisers’ needs in terms of power of persuasion towards potential sponsors.

Additionally, there is a demand for incorporating

the TIMES related colours and further information regarding the competition, in order to make the webpage more appealing. TIMES must be able to keep up with the benchmarks set by the websites of other European case study competitions. Ultimately, the participants of the Kick-Off Meeting agreed on giving the Committee the opportunity to create a separate TIMES homepage, as long as certain guidelines, mainly regarding the connection between ESTIEM and the project, were followed.

Keeping in mind all the other topics that were discussed in Karlsruhe, this meeting’s results promise a proud future for TIMES in general and for the upcoming 2008 cycle in particular. We are all very proud to be involved in this project and are keen and ambitious enough to be able to reach the objectives we set ourselves. 

NEWS

NEWS

16

Something juan carlos espinosa

During the Council Meeting Eindhoven, the ESTIEM Board presented the idea of gathering all Local Responsibles in one place, thus creating a meeting where they would be trained and have time for own discussions: “The LR Parade”.

The principal objective of this event is to form Local Responsibles who did not have a good handover, to give helpful ideas to the weak Local Groups and to find solutions to normal problems that Local Responsibles constantly come across while they lead their Local Groups.

After a group of ESTIEMers adopted the idea of the LR Parede, a Task Group was created to implement it. This group was formed by: Zeynep Sabuncuoglu (LG Metu, KMC member), Didem Boz (LR of LG Istanbul-Yildiz), Sebastian Geese (LR of LG Siegen), Manuel Sans (President of LG Lyon) and myself – our work was directly supported by the President of ESTIEM, Philipp Bächle.

From the Council Meeting Eindhoven to the Council Meeting Bremen, we have been working on this event together, and here are what we did.

Official presentation of the Role of the Local Responsible in ESTIEM

It includes a quiz to test if Local Responsibles really understood the essential information. The content is a more complete guideline for Local Responsibles . The idea is to structure this guideline, making it easier and more visual, create ”step by step” instructions for the usage of the ESTIEM Portal, our own intranet, and include the Local Group requirements that have been presented in Eindhoven last April. It could also include essential general information about ESTIEM, like a map with all the local groups in Europe and a very short description of each Committee and Project in ESTIEM.

NEW Management and Structure of the Local Groups

The most convenient structure that local groups should have (Local Responsible, President, Secretary, etc…): what is the role of each of these officers?; How do we solve problems?; How do we create and develop trainings for team building and leadership trainings?; How do we execute meetings and how do we motivate our active members?; How should tasks be divided and duties delegated?; Finally a summation on effective managerial guidelines that a Local Responsible needs.

Handover

The aim is to explain what should be the perfect situation for doing this transmission of information. The Local Group in Lyon gave also the following idea: why not doing the hand-over at the same time for all the Local Groups, since it would be easier to do the trainings at the Council Meeting and it would make the LR Parade more successful.

The results of this work will be presented during the Council Meeting Bremen, and we will try to find the first Local Group who will support this event for the next year.

We are confident that a good Local Responsible is the first step for a successful Local Group, thus for a better ESTIEM. 

The World’s economy The world’s economy depends on many factors, some of them even influence each other. The understanding of this complex behaviour needs to be put together as a puzzle. Each piece of inforamtion is a piece of that puzzle – gather as many as you can you get the big picture!

18 Focus

CEFTA

Ivan Karlovic

On Monday 24th of September 2007 the parliament of Serbia adopted a law confirming the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA). With this act, the multilateral document that replaces 32 bilateral free trade agreements has been signed by all eight customs territories (Albania, Moldova, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and UNMIK on behalf of Kosovo). This regional agreement aims at establishing a free trade zone in the region by December 31, 2010.

History of CEFTA

CEFTA is not a new concept. The original CEFTA agreement was signed by Visegrád Group countries (Poland, Hungary and Czech and Slovak republics this time parts of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic) on 21st December 1992 in Krakow, Poland.

It entered into force since July 1994. Through CEFTA, participating countries hoped to mobilise efforts to integrate Western European institutions and through this, to join European political, economic, security and legal systems, thereby consolidating democracy and free-market economics. At the EU’s recommendation, the future members prepared for membership by establishing free trade areas as a large proportion of CEFTA foreign trade is with EU countries.

How can participating countries benefit from the CEFTA 2006 agreement?

Overall there are some great benefits for countries that join the CEFTA agreement. First of all it contributes to the harmonisation of trade relations in the region as it replaces a complex set of bilateral free trade agreements across the whole region of SEE. Also, disputes regarding the enforcement of CEFTA will be more easily dealt with as a joint mechanism to resolving those issues has been set up.

New possibilities of applying the principles of a diagonal accumulation of the product’s origin in the trade with regional countries and with the EU will strengthen the potential for investment and exports of the region. It will speed up the technological developments that will make products and services from SEE more competitive in the EU and the global market as a whole. New areas of economic relations have also been set up in the areas of regional investments, intellectual properties and public procurement.

The single most important benefit for Serbia is the fact that the agreement is in line with WTO and EU laws. What it actually means is that even before Serbia joins the WTO and EU, it has to adapt to its legislation which is a significant step in boosting investor confidence as it will increase the transparency and predictability for foreign partners but also entrepreneurs and small businesses which are the most sensitive to the weaknesses of poor legislation.

Transition to EU membership

As all former participating countries of CEFTA had previously signed association agreements with the EU, so in fact CEFTA has served as a preparation for full European Union membership. Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia joined the EU on 1 May 2004, and Bulgaria and Romania did so on 1 January 2007. Croatia does not yet have a date specified, but is in the process of accession negotiations, and is expected to join EU in 2009 or 2010.

Macedonia is official candidate country of the EU. Serbia is also expected to become and official candidate by the end of 2008. During the stabilization and association process it was agreed upon to abolish trade barriers by 2013 which will mean a free trade agreement with the EU.

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a warm-up to the EU This means that Serbian companies have five years to prepare themselves to EU wide competition and the best way to do that is to participate in the region through the CEFTA agreements and grow by cooperating or merging with regional companies..

All these developments are welcomed by end consumers in the whole region. Croatia has already seen the major benefits of increasing international competition which has resulted in lower priced and higher quality products, especially in the FMCG industry. We can just hope the same thing will occur in Serbia, even before 2010. 

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ozan efe ertem

Derivative of Life

In the past few years the hottest word to use in the financial circles has been ‘derivative’. A derivative, by definition, is a line that passes very close to the real thing and manages to barely touch it at one point. Financial experts have been making use of them for a while, but there is a new kid on the block.

The days when wealth revolved around producing goods, shipping them around the world and trading them for, in essence, other goods are long gone.

Today even engineers apply their skills to model complex interactions between markets along with the usual supply chains. Smart financial experts are “pushing the envelope” by taking the derivative of everything they see. Others, however, have gone one step ahead and taken the derivative of life itself.

Consequently, the most recent “blockbuster” in the world of economics is not the doing of these financial experts in expensive suits but some computer geniuses and millions of teenagers in cheap T-shirts. When the massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG for acronym lovers) of “World of Warcraft” (WoW) was released a few years ago by Blizzard Entertainment, it attracted much attention in the gaming industry. Today, it attracts nine million players who pay monthly to play it and invest a substantial amount of time in their pursuits in this world of fantasy. What no one saw coming were the new lines of business this would span for the entrepreneurs. Today a high level character (also known as an avatar) in WoW fetches as high as 3 0 00 $ on e-Bay where particu-

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larly rare weapons are worth hundreds of dollars.

A “full-time” experienced player can create such a character in less than a month. Not a bad paycheck for your average college student who would spend that time anyway.

But this is not where the story ends. Wherever there is a demand and supply there is a market and as economy teaches us, markets have a tendency to organise themselves. A recently established company provides one such market, uniting nearly 30 different massively multiplayer online games under one roof. The company will sell you or buy from you game currency, characters, or items for real dollars. The prices are quite standard and vary geographically (i.e. the different servers for a game between which characters cannot be transferred).

Now you might be wondering why this is so special.

After all, it is an entertainment service for which people are paying and the more exquisite the entertainment, the higher the price. In that case, you are invited to meet “Second Life”.

Second Life is fast becoming the first life for an alarmingly high number of people, particularly in

the US. It is an online world where digital extensions of real people populate vast fictional cities.

People make friends, date, go out shopping or sit in gossiping via their characters. The biggest difference in this game, however, is that it allows you to create. If you are an aspiring designer you can whip up some brilliant dresses and people will buy them from you. They will actually pay you real money. Recently, a digital entrepreneur re-invented billboards. The demand from companies was phenomenal. While the funds going into WoW can be considered to be for entertainment purposes, Second Life is rapidly accumulating wealth. This accumulation is so rapid that it has piqued the interest of serious financial institutions that are moving in and digitally re-inventing real estate agencies, financing and a plethora of assets to spend money on. The frightening part is that since we have gone through all of this in real life, the second time is going rather fast.

Let’s sit back for a moment and think about the implications. The first thing to realise is the vast amount of possibilities that is controlled by the creators of this world. Assume a real estate firm that has invested heavily into Second Life. If the creators simply code another piece of very attractive land and start selling it cheap, they could easily bankrupt the real estate firm. This would probably lead to an unprecedented lawsuit. Let’s take it a step further. Countries tax economic activity on their land and return it as social service. Who would tax the economic activity on such a virtual world: The country where the server is stored or the country of the player? Even more importantly, how could anyone keep track of economic activity in such a world? It is also worth

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considering that if this environment were tax free, it would be a very lucrative business opportunity and compound the growth rate of virtual wealth.

In the same time it would decrease tax revenue for countries. It is sensible to assume that in such a case countries would attempt to heavily police the transfer of national wealth to this unbounded environment. How about a disaster scenario… What if people simply lose interest and become obsessed with the next big thing. As any gaming enthusiast will tell you, it can happen literally overnight.

Such a sharp depreciation in assets could seriously damage the companies invested in it. More importantly, with such a global community the effect would be felt simultaneously and internationally. Whether this could trigger a global financial crisis is dependent on how much of the world’s INFO BOX Here is a bit of trivia if you wonder what those financial derivatives are. Take a simple apple. It is an apple in Europe, in US or in Venus. However, as soon as you take the derivative of it, it turns into money. That is, you can use the money to actually buy the apple (i.e., touching the real thing) or some other grocery (or just pass close to it). It also has a different value in Europe or Venus. However, one may also take a derivative of money and create the rights to buy an apple (known as options) or the possibility to make some money by essentially betting on the future price of apples (known as futures).

And thus by taking derivatives economists turn a tasty apple into what is known as a market, a devious thing which causes ulcers in brokers by the time they are 35.

wealth is stored in there. Presently, nobody would notice it. In a decade, it is anybody’s guess. To put yet another question mark there: What if all the financial instruments of modern times with their options and futures became available for the digital world? What would it mean to predict the future of something that only exists because a sufficiently high number of people agree that it does?

These questions will no doubt be answered before the fictional wealth gets anywhere near a globally significant amount. Whatever the answers may be, the fact is that a second life is what many people want and when there is a demand, supply is sure to follow. Second Life, its imitations and superiors will be fully in our lives in the next decade. In all possibility this will delight the academic world of economics the most. After all, where else can you find an economy where there are real players but you can experiment and change the conditions with a few clicks? 

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Turkey

A Hot Spot among Emerging Markets serdar turkmen Recent years have witnessed the economic growth in global markets, together with a tremendous capital flow from saturated markets to emerging ones. One of the remarkable consequences of this phenomenon is the surge of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) transactions in which Private Equity Companies play a trend-setter role. Turkey, a prominent member among emerging markets, has also experienced this wave of transition and is now becoming one of the hubs and main targets for Private Equity Funds.

Nevertheless, there are significant trends characterising Private Equities’ pace in the Turkish market. This article aims to give a general overview of the Turkish M&A market and extraordinary rise of Private Equities in Turkey, based on the solid experience of Helix Management Consultants working in alliance with Booz Allen Hamilton.

Global liquidity has been one of the main drivers in triggering the recent economic boom across the globe. With increasing oil prices, producer countries have become a pool of accumulated capital. On the other hand, after the decreasing return on fixed income financial instruments in those countries and globally, liquidity has headed towards higher yields which is offered by emerging markets. This phenomenon has stimulated a global wave of capital, FDI (Foreign Direct Investment)

towards these Emerging Markets, along with a risk appetite for leveraged high returns.

Turkey, besides its geographic position at the crossroads of two continents, has recently become one of the hot spots in FDI traffic. After 30 years of regular recessions, crises and hyperinflation; for the last five years, Turkey has enjoyed an economic stability led by structural reforms in financial markets and rapid EU integration. The well-known concept “BRIC Economies� (Brazil, Russia, India and China) ,which is derived to stress their unique investment conjunctures, has changed and became T-BRIC through the addition of Turkey. With its young population of 73 million, Turkey has an outstanding potential in terms of customer demand and labor force for real sector investments. Indeed, FDI inflows incurred in the last four years dem-

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onstrate how global players appreciate the current investment climate in Turkey: 1.1 billion $ (2002), 1.8 billion $ (2003), 2.9 billion $ (2004), 10 billion $ (2005), 20.1 billion $ (2006).

The three clearly visible economic consequences of FDI inflows in Turkey have been a significant rise in the stock market, valued local currency and recovery in current account deficit.

Furthermore, as an effect of FDI, there have been 87 IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) in Istanbul Stock Exchange between 2000 and 2007 which accumulated 8.3 billion $ of capital for issuer companies. Of course, among these results, new business start-ups and M&A are the most desired outcomes of FDI, which will have the most lasting positive effect on the Turkish economy.

Currently FDI mostly targets existing local companies rather than Greenfield start-ups, as international best practices and strong global financial basis account for a good fit to leverage the local experience/presence of target companies.

Energy, telecom and finance are the top sectors on the M&A lists in Turkey. In the last six years there have been 19 acquisitions in the banking sector which have resulted in share ownership ranging from 20% to full ownership.

The Attention of European banks such as HSBC, Unicredito, BNP Paribas, Fortis, ING Group, NBG (National Bank of Greece), Dexia is remarkable with their 9.8 Billion Dollar total acquisition volume. Besides banking sector consolidations, privatisation of state owned Turk Telecom, Tüpras ( Turkish Petroleum Refineries Co.), Petrol Ofisi (Refined Oil Products Distributor), Petkim (Petrochemical Industry Holding Co.) and acquisition of Telsim (second biggest mobile telecom operator) are strong evidences of how the Turkish market structure has changed.

For sure, there are lucrative reasons for an industry player intending to expand its operations throughout Turkey. Skilled labour market, economic stability and growing customer demand driven by increased population and GDP per capita are some of them that guarantee an exceptional and stable revenue for acquirers. However, there is one more stimulus for M&A in Turkey, probably the most effective one, which is the target company’s potential to improve its operational efficiency that leads to higher profitability. With these revenue and profit prospects, industrial consolidations aim to accomplish an enduring position with sustainable performance.

Nevertheless, there are acquirerin institutions such as private equity companies, which solely aim to utilise increased profits with financial restructuring and performance improvements in target companies. Instead of attaining a lasting position in the market, private equities prefer to restructure target companies and sell them with a better deal. Those funds are established to raise capital from individual investors, investment banks or other funds in order to execute M&A operations in global markets.

After progressions in the Turkish economy

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and in its regulatory frameworks, international private equity Firms have increased their interest in Turkey. For the last twelve years, between 1995–2007, 32 different private equities have operated in Turkish market. Those firms, which are mainly backed by foreign investors, have invested 2.8 billion Dollar up to date in Turkey and there is another 3.6 billion Dollar committed amount waiting for investment.

As Helix Management Consultants working in alliance with Booz Allen Hamilton, we are advising many private equity companies in their M&A deals. According to our experience, these companies add significant value to their acquisitions through a series of mechanisms:

The private equities provide fresh capital to improve the financial structure as well as to fuel growth Due to their high expectations in terms of institutionalisation, they demand state-ofthe-art monitoring, reporting and governance mechanisms which bring significant discipline They provide their vast professional network to support the business Having experience in using professional service companies, the private equity companies support collaboration with consultants or other third parties where they see any value added.

Although with a different agenda and time horizon, the private equity activities increase efficiency and resilience within markets. We have been part of many acquisitions and subsequent transformations, and have witnessed the positive change first hand. And I guess we will witness a continuing activity even in global turbulent times, albeit more selectively and carefully. 

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Outsourcing to China and India: The Dilemma of Economic Development in our Modern World ehsan ehsani Background

In the last 20 years, European societies and the US have benefited a lot from a phenomenon called “outsourcing to low-cost countries”: People have now access to state-of-the-art electronics products, very fashionable type of clothes and household appliances at exceptional prices; in other words it can be said that the standard of life has been elevated to some extent through outsourcing. On the other hand, this issue is a bit tricky and some experts argue that too much outsourcing might not lead to global economic development. This provided the motivation to write this piece and try to find answers to questions such as: Does outsourcing to lower-cost countries lead to more economic development in the western world? What are the threats? How can we mitigate the risks?

Offshore outsourcing provides these companies with the opportunity to harvest the benefits of lower labor costs in developing countries and exploit the value of artificially manipulated foreign currencies, where the exchange rate is internationally undervalued.

Countries such as India, China, and even Eastern European countries can benefit significantly from the wave of the companies which outsource to them in terms of increased number of jobs and higher wages, job prestige, professional training and higher quality of life.

Overall it can be said through outsourcing to Asia, companies can expect the ability to focus on innovation and their core activities, to lower cost, and grow.

Outsourcing to Asia: A Closer Look

What is the Dilemma?

Many of the organisations today are making the decision to outsource some part of their operations to Asia; to mention some of the interesting ones: the call center operation of the Chicago Taxi Services or almost all of the hardware parts of the PCs for Dell Computer.

If outsourcing is this good, should we worry about anything? The answer is yes. There is a dilemma here: outsourcing is like a double-edged sword; If you do not go for it, you will ultimately lose the battle field of the business market to the competitors and if you go for it, there is a risk that you might lose the “touch” of the business

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and know-how in the future. Also, the experts argue that one of the negative effects of the outsourcing phenomenon at the macro-level is the loss of jobs and loss of the competitiveness of the country.

Many customers and companies have expressed their concern about the fact that the quality of the outsourced product or service is not necessarily the same as the original one. In addition to quality problems, security issues are also a challenge. One of the highest profile stories happened in 2005 when some of the call center workers of Citibank in India got the password of some customers and moved around 350 0 00 Dollar into their accounts.

Some of the negative effects at the national level include more than two million job loss only in the US during late 1990s, intense competition from new-comers from India and China and losing manufacturing know-how by European and American companies. The result of a survey conducted in 2004 among the American people showed that 71% of the people think that sending operations to China and India will ultimately hurt the economy.

The Things that can be done

At the end of the day, companies have to outsource and things are not as bad as they seem.

There are some suggested solutions on how to unlock the puzzle of outsourcing and benefit from its strength at the business and national level.

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The first and most important notion is that the hype about the negative effects of outsourcing is only relevant for certain industries; unfortunately apparel products and electronics manufacturers have to work hard but for logistics industry, this issue is not a problem.

At the micro-level, there are also some other solutions for this: companies can keep some parts of their operations in house to ensure that they remain aware of what is going on in the manufacturing world and integrate manufacturing technologies with their product innovation capabilities. They can also develop procedures to train, select the right people and do quality improvement techniques so that quality and security risks can be controlled.

And finally at the national level, a suggestion

by McKinsey Global Institute seems plausible.

McKinsey experts believe that companies can donate a certain percentage of the savings from outsourcing to a government fund, and the aggregated amount of money can be spent on initiatives, which are trying to strengthen competitiveness of the domestic businesses.

Whatever the companies and the governments do, they should keep one thing in mind: Under the shadow of globalisation, outsourcing is a must and only the ones who master it, shall survive. 

A number of institutes and organisations have been working on this issue in order to solve how companies at micro-level and governments as macro-level can mitigate the risks of overoutsourcing:

NOTES 1) Wikipedia, Outsourcing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/outsourcing 2) How offshore work affects your industry, Harvard Business Review, November.

3) Costly Secret of China Sourcing, Harvard Business Review, February 2006.

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CM

Eindhoven

Erna gooren

As you probably already know, twice a year the ESTIEM Council Meeting takes place somewhere in Europe. This huge event is all about improving ESTIEM. Important decisions are made during the General Assemblies and during the working groups both the committees and project teams have the opportunity to meet face-to-face and work intensively on setting and fulfilling their goals.

Besides the working part, a Council Meeting is also a great deal of fun! Getting in touch with the city’s (night) life, experiencing the local culture, interacting with the partner company representatives and having the opportunity making friends from all over Europe!

All the above is exactly what we did in Eindhoven last April. I think the two hundred of us had really a great week full of hard work and lots of fun!

Therefore, I would like to thank all the people that were at the Council Meeting in Eindhoven. You made all the effort of our Local Group worthwhile!

Besides all the ESTIEM’ers that made this week unforgettable a special thanks to the organising team.

Thijs, René, Selinde, Rutger, Bas van Geffen, Bas Bemelmans, Ida and Arnout you made it really happen.

I will never forget the great year we had together.

And of course good luck to those who are now, right at this moment I guess, running around and stressing to make another Council Meeting happen.

By the way, if you didn’t get the chance to come to the CM in Eindhoven. Next year there will be another opportunity to visit us! Keep an eye on the agenda… 

The next day, Saturday, started with a cycle/ puzzle/sightseeing tour through Groningen.

In the end this tour proved a bit too long and exhausting for some of the participants who were not used to cycling that much. Not for Manu though! He is an expert in cycling, which he showed the night before by perfectly performing a wheelie with Lennart on the back of his bike.

This resulted in Lennart falling off the bike and lots of laughs!

Due to the late Friday night and the intensive tour we had in the morning, the boat tour was more like a sleeping tour. Nevertheless, some enjoyed the sight of Groningen’s canals. The dinner that evening took place at the famous Pancakeship, with unlimited amounts of pancakes for our ESTIEMers. Everybody enjoyed the socalled pirate banquet. Saturday night was again filled with fun in bars, walking through the city and clubbing. The night ended once more at the “Blue Angel” where the last ESTIEMers went home during dawn.

The program on Sunday started at eleven o’clock at the Groninger Museum. We had an interesting tour through the whole museum with lots of information about the architecture, paintings, sculptures and emergency exits in the museum! Lunch was held in the Noorderplantsoen, a park, accompanied by some great views and some football, which rejuvenated most of the ESTIEMers. This was a good thing, because the next event scheduled for the Sunday was wall climbing. One and a half hours of true adrenaline and excitement were the result and this great exercise made some ESTIEMers decide to go

Pre-CM

Groningen swimming outdoors. The others went home on their bikes for a shower and some rest before their last night in Groningen. On the way back Lennart wanted to prove his biking skills by showing off with a stunt on the bridge. Unfortunately his stunt ended up with a crash, only barely avoiding Etienne who was walking down the bridge. The result: Lennart falling off a bike again!

The night was once more reserved for partying, fun and visiting traditional dutch bars. A good time for everybody! On Monday we said goodbye and everyone headed off to the Council Meeting in Eindhoven.

Finally, one participant’s comment, which speaks for everybody: “this was my best ESTIEM event ever!” 

Johannes schaafsma

The Pre Council Meeting event in spring 2007 took place between the 13th and 16th of April in our beautiful Groningen. With lots of Germans, some Turks and French the scene was set for a good time. On the first night we went to the sixth floor of Springs to enjoy a well deserved dinner before visiting some bars and clubs, with some ESTIEMers ending up at the “Blue Angel” until way past five o’clock!

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Adventures of Yogi ına muhlenbruch

It was some time ago, by the end of June in 2006. In the city of Lund two stuffed animals started their competition in travelling through Europe and participating at the most ESTIEM events. These two are Yogi Bear and Mr. Mouse. A little Swedish girl sent them on their trip through Europe.

After getting to know some Swedish ESTIEMers in Lund, Yogi decided to travel to Eindhoven. He had heard strange things about crazy people there and some odd electronic music. He wanted to visit one of this famous coffee shops and travelled with a boy he knew from Lund to the Dutch city

He travels to join ESTIEM activities. He likes beer

So Yogi booked a flight to the far, far Ankara and hoped to get some sunny weather in October.

After a nice journey, a warm welcome-party and a small talk with his competitor, Mr Mouse, he started planning his next events and countries to visit.

This time in Ankara was the first time that I met him. Sara introduced us as we had a meeting of the gossip committee. I asked him which station and event would be his next. He answered that he was so impressed by the presentation of the Dortmund people and wanted to take his chance to visit the new member, Local Group Dortmund.

I had not heard that much from him during that time in the German ‘Ruhr region’. So I can not tell you anything about his adventures there.

But in the end, it must have been great, because he decided to stay there until the next Council Meeting in Eindhoven came.

But how to go there, if no one from LG Dortmund could attend? What should he do to help him?

In this bad situation he remembered his friend from Ankara. That was me. He decided to ask if there is a place in the Hamburg car to go to Eindhoven. Hamburg was happy to have the chance to give such an important person a free place in the car.

After a hard and fun time in Holland, Yogi wanted more. He thought it is not enough to know only a few of this ‘ESTIEM people’. And what is the best place to get to know ESTIEMers and learn something new about this organisation?

You, as an ESTIEMer know the answer, join a Council Meeting.

But the problem was not solved. How to cross the distance between Hamburg and Dortmund?

There was only one possibility, go there via mail.

That is not the way Yogi likes to travel, but at that time it was the only way to participate at the Council Meeting Eindhoven. And Yogi did not want to miss a Council Meeting.

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So his Dortmund host packed him into a box and sent him on his way to Hamburg. During this time he joined some ESTIEM meetings with Local Group Hamburg, a Council Meeting-preparationbarbecue and had a very nice shopping tour.

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come party began.

He met a lot of old friends and made some new ones. At the welcome party he had the pleasure to walk over the red carpet and from then he knows

He takes care of all ESTIEMers. If you have headache, go to Yogi he is a real ESTIEMer and felt like a star.

He enjoyed the week that much that he was very sad as he had to say good bye to his Hamburg friends and hosts by the end of the Council Meeting. But the travel of Yogi never ends, so he decided to join Local Group Novi Sad. He had heard some stories about wild parties, beautiful girls and good food, he had to go there to find out if all that was true.

And who knows, maybe you will read in the next issue about his adventures in Novi Sad, or His competitor Mr. Mouse will tell you something about his stations and experiences?

Well, he is a bit casanova and forces ESTIEMers to help him I told him, that it would be practical to have a nice ESTIEM polo shirt, like most of the other ESTIEMers do. So we both went to a famous shop and bought one for him. Yogi had now clothes.

The beginning of the Council Meeting Eindhoven came closer and closer. The Local Group Hamburg and Yogi left the north German city at eight o’clock in the morning and went westwards.

They all enjoyed the trip and as soon as they passed the border to the Netherlands they had their first beer.

After a warm welcome by the board members, the registration and check in at the hostel the wel-

Until that I would say, see you somewhere in Europe! 

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Having Fun in

Activity Week Belgrade-Novi Sad Davıd chriıstıan berg

Never been to Serbia? A country still recovering from war, which just said good-bye to Montenegro and might have to say good-bye to Kosovo soon; a country, that most of the first half of this year did not have a government?

I mean, who would want to go there?

Well, me! Actually I will admit it right away: I haveve been to Serbia thrice now already and it seems likely that I will visit again – just great!

Last occasion I dropped by in this exciting country was the activity week in July, which promised to be a lot of fun, especially due to the EXIT festival in Novi Sad, we were to visit. And the week did not fail us.

Although I arrived one day late in Belgrade, where the Activity Week started (cheap flights, you know), I had only missed some relaxed time at the lake side and a visit to the wonderful fortress.

Even if I use the word “only” here: if you ever go to Belgrade, do not miss the fortress! It is a fantastic place with ruin walls, towers and parks, along with baroque terraces, overlooking the confluence of Danube and Sava; where locals chat, study, or relax playing games. At night it transforms to a romantic meeting point of couples. You definitely should go there. Only I had been there twice before (day and night) and could tell, what I had missed.

The Belgrade part of the Activity Week did in contrast to the Novi Sad part which included some cultural and educational elements. However, my personal excitement for visiting football stadiums was rather low, since football does not quite represent my main field of interest. Also seeing a part of the impressive coin collection of Weifert (yes, that is a beer, he founded the brewery), was while astonishing and nice too look at.

But what does it matter that in the tiny museum to honour the great Nicola Tesla (do not follow his example, he was a genius as you know, but died in poverty), the girls only had eyes for the guide and that the most exciting thing in the National Bank was to print a bill with your own portrait?

None of us had really come to Belgrade for this. It was an Activity Week.

It was about adventure: Climbing St. Sava church, which is still under heavy construction, with its unlit, dust and gravel covered stairways – we learnt, why they put these lights in the mobile phones –, not to mention all the holes in the floor and the fact that it was of course not permitted to go there was this very adventure. However, this was rewarded with an awesome view of the city from the very top balcony.

It was about party: And partying is not hard in Belgrade. Except for Tuesdays this city will never fail to offer you one of the best parties you have ever been to. The rafts with its bars and discotheques on the banks for Sava and Danube provide some excellent places to go out.

It was about relaxing: The Ada area, a dead arm of the Sava used as a lake with recreational facilities, offered not only the option to perform the ESTIEM song swimming (that is very exhausting) but also some lying on the beach and a relaxed barbecue, prepared by the organisers.

The Belgrade part can be considered a success.

After almost missing our bus on Thursday we did arrive in Novi Sad to meet a girl (second guide) from the Tesla museum, while waiting for the bus that should take us to our house.

Serbia What comes to follow in Novi Sad could be explained quickly: We partied until seven am or later each morning, slept until one pm waited for lunch until six pm and went to party in the fortress again. I do however want to elaborate on some details a little.

For one, there is the party location. The fortress of Novi Sad is more functional and by day less exiting than the one in Belgrade. It is located right across the Danube from the city, which means that some places offer a fantastic view over the city.

With its bridges, dry moats, walls and open range fields, the fortress offers an incredible place for a festival. You walk 20 meters from one small stage to another and due to the tunnel in between, you will not be distracted by the other music. Find a dance arena with a stage built on the slope, with 20 0 00 ravers going crazy – surrounded by high walls.

Mix this location with a good show from “The Prodegy”, unfortunately viewed from far back, some “Beasty Boys” going crazy on stage and an audience in front of it, Lauryn Hill performing “All my Time” (the rest were mostly unknown new songs), and Snoop Dogg making fun of Serbian police in a hilarious act. Now spice in some Croatian rock, Latin music, drum and base and add some ESTIEMers. It is a wonderful mix and really enjoyable. Try it! Only the beer (“Tuborg” – who ever said it was a beer?) and the token system (tokens were drink specific and you could not even get a cheaper water for a beer token) left us with some disappointment.

But really, who cares, when you are surrounded by Romanian girls and even a hard-core ESTIEMer from Eindhoven could not keep up with the party?

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And if it had not been for the flies waking you by 12:00 at noon the latest, after you had just started your much needed sleep at 8:00 am or 9:00 am, well, if it had not been for this plague of little flying bastards, landing on your face, then we might have even had the chance to recharge our batteries after each day.

However real ESTIEMers don not need to recharge anyways. That is why we threw in some visit to the downtown of Novi Sad, and a day on the sandy banks of the Danube.

Thanks to missing our train in the morning of the last day, the Dutchies and me had more than enough time to get some sleep and say good-bye to the Romanian girls again.

It was 3:16 am of the next morning, when the Hungarian passport control woke us. With all the doubts we have had: We managed to escape from Serbia. But for how long?

By the way, thanks for all the vegetables – and all the rest of course! 

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IFISO Meeting

ıgnacıo j. perez prat

IFISO means ‘Informal Forum of International Student Organisations’ and it is a platform for non-profit, non-political student-run organisations to meet, share experiences and knowledge and to keep the communication between them.

The last meeting was between the 31st of May and the 4th of June in Brussels and was organised together by AEGEE – the European Students Forum, or Association des états généraux des étudiants de l’Europe – and ESN – the Erasmus Student Network. Both organisations have a their headquarters in Brussels, where the board members live and work during their office period.

There were 40 participants, the leaders of 14 student organisations. Together, we represented around two million students all around the globe.

The ESTIEM Board was also there, more exactly, Philipp Bächle (President), Olivier Zimmer (Vice President of Activities) and Ignacio J. Pérez Prat (Vice President of Public Relations).

The first session of this meeting was held at the Committee of Regions, an European Institution created by the Treaty of Maastrich, who kindly let us used their rooms. We had a representative form the Executive Agency of the Youth in Action Program – the program ESTIEM applied to get the ‘EU grant’. It was a very informative session, since even though they have changed their policy from the last years, they still intend to support student non-profit organisations.

We continued our meeting the day after and as a warm up we spoke about Non Formal Education, the Lifelong Learning Program and the Bologna Process. As a follow-up we had several interesting discussions including one about the Bologna Process. In general it was noticed and criticised by all organisations that student non-profit organisations are not mentioned in the Bologna Process although they are an important part of the student life. From the point of view of the participants, student organisations should also be considered in the Bologna Process statement. In order to change this, a joint venture of different student organisa-

tions will be aiming to gain recognition for this kind of associations in the eyes of the Bologna Process.

In the afternoon we continued with a great working session structured with a special tool called “Open Space Technology”. Open Space is a way to convene people for a conference, retreat or meet. The attendees are asked to generate the meeting agenda as well as to participate by leading small group break-out sessions during the meeting time. In this session we discussed several issues like the administration of the IFISO group (homepage, document administration, calendar sharing, etc.), the organisation of the IFISO Meeting and its content and also the question how to cooperate for different projects within IFISO. All in all it was very fruitful and everybody left with the feeling of having achieved real results.

But the day was not over and the last point on Saturday’s agenda was to settle the next IFISO Meeting in autumn and we can proudly announce that ESTIEM will organise it in fall this year.

On the last day, Monday, we concluded our meeting again in the Committee of Regions. We had two presentations: One about visa applications and the second by Karin Resetarits a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), who is specialised in Education, Women Rights and Gender Equality.

If you ever have the chance to discuss with an MEP take the chance and see how they think and work.

To sum it up, I can only say that IFISO is all about networking and the usage of synergies and from the beginning we committed ourselves to IFISO. 

35

EVENTS

Final Conference Famagusta FREE Vision Future Resources for Energy and Economy

The organisation team picked us up, and we went to the hotel. It looked even better than on the promo pictures. Wow! We were just standing and looking at it for a few moments. In Serbia we have a saying: “You can tell a day by its morning”.

If that is true, I am one happy man, I thought.

And later I found out that it was more than true.

After unpacking and all the usual stuff of the arrival, we finally met the other participants, 35 young, smart and very interesting people from across Europe, plus the organisation team.

Although we did not know that then, in that moment we met few very good friends, probably friends for life.

The first day was relaxing, we spent some time by the pool and we had a great cocktail party at the beautiful hotel restaurant (with the view of the sea, of course). .

We had the first lecture next morning They were organised at the Local Group Famagusta’s home university – Eastern Mediterranean University. During the three days, we had the opportunity and honour to listen lectures of respectable people, such are Dr. Canan Varlikli, from Ege University Solar Energy Institute, Dr. Serpil Yildiz, from Yildiz Technical University, Dr. Engin Ture, Director of UN Hydrogen Association, and Dr. Glenn P. Jenkins, Dr. Ugur Atikol, and Dr. Hikmet Aybar, from our host

university, Eastern Mediterranean University.

Although we, the members of the Local Group Belgrade who were at the Final Conference, are students of Management, we found the lectures about Alternative sources of energy very interesting, so some of us, inspired by presentations of those great professors, continued researching at home.

The guys and girls from the organisation team were excellent hosts. We had a chance to cruise with dolphins and to swim in the open sea, to try Turkish and Cypriot national dishes – my favourite: sword fish – and to experience the night life in Famugusta through visits to their traditional Spring Festival and popular discotheques. Also, the atmosphere between us, the participants, was great. Some great friendships were made.

While I am writing this, memories are rising, and I can honestly tell that the Final Conference in Famagusta was one of the best moments of my life, and I cannot wait to see the people I have met there in some other ESTIEM event.

The only problem was that it was perfectly organised, so we from Serbia faced a big challenge because next big event was Activity Week Serbia (Belgrade and Novi Sad), and you have to work really hard to satisfy ESTIEMers after this, but that is a different story. 

momcilo radovanovic

Wednesday, 16th of May, noon. I am standing at the Cypriot airport, after 24 hours and three different ways of transportation I am finally there.

Tremor. Excitement. My first ESTIEM event and my first visit to Cyprus, I do not know what to expect. I was standing with hands and shoulders full of bags (that is what happens when you are traveling with six girls). I decided to expect nothing. I am on Cyprus, for God’s sake. It cannot be bad in any way.

EVENTS

36

FREE Vision

Paderborn FREE Vision

Future Resources for Energy and Economy

martın boddeker

Last year the Local Group Paderborn – named ‘HG Wing’ – planned to organise its first Vision seminar ever. After a lot of planning and discussing we agreed to do a FREE Vision under the topic of “Models of Economisation”.

Once we had called companies and talked to professors we were ready to offer ESTIEMers a great program in Paderborn. There were only about fifteen ESTIEMers – we expected some more participants –, but to our satisfaction we only got positive feedback. After the event was over, we had the feeling that it was worth the effort and that it was a great success for our local group! We had the support from E.ON, who offered us a visit to a gas-steam power plant, and a professor for “Sustainable Energy Concepts”, who held a lecture about the future of offshore wind energy. We also arranged a company visit to Weidmüller, the leading provider of solutions for the transmission of power, signals and data in industrial environments. There, we explored the possibilities to save time and money through new plug and connection technologies from screw to push-in..

We also had a presentation about reducing costs and time to market through “customer specialised product development”. This was followed by a visit to a typical production plant. At Heggemann, ESTIEMers could see what kind of car they

would drive if their careers take off: A brand new Bugatti. This company produces specialised products for high-end sport cars and is currently enjoying a rapid growth.

Besides the lectures and the company visits, our Local Group wanted to show something more than seminar rooms. If you come to Paderborn you must see the world’s biggest computer museum, which was hosting a special fair for medical technologies at that time.

As we started with planning this event, we realised that our Local Group was going to have its 20th anniversary: so why not include a really big party into the FREE Vision, together with all the students from the ‘HG Wing’ and our alumni?

That is how we started planning a big gala dinner.

Beginning with speeches from our professors we went through the history of our local group, we had a very nice ceremony and later that night a great party. Surprisingly, the German party songs turned out to be the ESTIEMers’ favourite music.

Our guests could say the first Vision seminar in Paderborn was a really big success and we say it will definitely not be the last event in our Local Group 

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38

PRofessional

by Karsten Roeder

An Insight of the IE Scope in the Semiconductor Industry In order to stay competitive, memory semiconductor companies have to achieve around 30 percent cost reduction per year. Increasing wafer size, shrinking transistor size and the use of industrial engineering methods are three main pillars for reaching this target. Industrial engineering is fairly new to the semiconductor industry, but the awareness of its importance has increased in recent years.

It is now a standard tool for improving manufacturing competitiveness. As a global company Qimonda has factories all over the world (e.g. USA, Germany, Portugal, China, Taiwan, Malaysia). Each factory and production department must run as “best-in-class” to achieve the challenging annual targets of 30 percent cost reduction. To help meet this target, each Qimonda site has established a local industrial engineering group to challenge and support the current activities and business processes.

To help reach the global goals, local Industrial Engineers perform operational assessments of the manufacturing process. Improvement opportunities are identified through analysis of performance metrics and on-the-floor observations. The analysis methods used are Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), Operating Curve Management (OCM) as well as Operating Equipment Efficiency (OEE) waterfalls. The IEs work as a team with colleagues in manufacturing, planning, equipment and process engineering. Together this team defines action items and timelines for improvement and assists in the implementation of the agreed actions.

In addition to the operational assessments, the local industrial engineering groups define and create new viewpoints and ways of analysing operational data, in order to allow better decision making and manufacturing execution.

This, combined with an expert knowledge of the semiconductor manufacturing process and equipment, allows the IE to deliver new monitoring and decision making tools for the line.

Within the IE framework, Qimonda has recruited so called Senior Equipment Engineering Specialists. They are

responsible for an assigned equipment set across all production sites in terms of process speed, Intrinsic Equipment Efficiency (IEE), reliability and maintainability. They create a worldwide network to improve equipment throughput. The methods employed are typically “golden tool matching” and equipment parameter analysis to support continuous “best-in-class” equipment performance. Each Qimonda Senior Equipment Engineering Specialist has 10+ years of experience in equipment and industrial engineering and are acknowledged experts in their field. A central industrial engineering group at Qimonda provides the framework for sharing IE best practice through the linking of the local IE groups, ownership of Technical Regulations and is responsible for future global projects. They support the local sites in developing Real Time Dispatcher rules and scheduling methods. The group also does advanced modelling and simulation to improve performance of individual production equipment as well as the overall factory efficiency. Furthermore, the global IE group is responsible for new manufacturing improvement strategies. For example, feasibility studies, simulations and investment calculations are conducted regarding the benefits of a fully automated factory.

Capability building is another task for the industrial engineering groups. They provide training for the production and development departments in SMED, OCM and Cycle Time to name just a few examples.In addition, Industrial Engineers are supporting the improvement of softwaretools. One example of this is the introduction of a new Manufacturing Execution System (MES) into an existing factory. A very good understanding of the overall picture is a prerequisite for making such a critical project successful.

The IE’s are core team members, bringing the mandatory skills to the project and acting as interfaces between the production department, IT and other worldwide Qimonda manufacturing sites.

Working as an Industrial Engineer for a global company is much more than just holding a job and receiving a paycheck. You work in a worldwide environment, with a variety of people from different cultures. This offers new opportunities to learn and benefit from them and to develop an insight into what “globalisation of manufacturing operations” really means.

The opportunities to work as an Industrial Engineer in the semiconductor industry are almost unlimited due to the huge range of challenges presented by ever increasing manufacturing complexity and the relentless focus on productivity and cost improvements. Industrial engineering at Qimonda is one important pillar in the organization for continual improvement and success. The many opportunities for an Industrial Engineer at Qimonda and the tough targets make this job so fascinating. 

39

huseyin binzat

Inside ESTIEM Ents were wrong

The whole experience was pretty different, I mean the beginning and the end. Do you remember the comics depicting the coming and the end of a year? The one in which a small, very innocent and always smiling baby enters a new year and in just 365 days, we see a hunchbacked old grandpa with a long white beard, carrying a cane not to fall.

With the example above you can understand not so much the physical but the emotional part of the experience; I remember my funny questions to the board members of ESTIEM, asking about the silliest details while preparing the roadmap in order not to make a mistake. It was more of a burden for me than a chance of gift. I was halfashamed and anxious at the gala dinner, fearing to forget which foot is the next one when stepping forward, what should I do as a PL after the formal end of the CM. With such a long introduction, you are expecting to read on about the whole year, right?

No, dear ESTIEMers, since that year has finished so quickly, I cannot remember all the details!

This may be another advice for you, write down your whole year! Be hasty, do not believe old and experienced-looking Ents! One year is normally, very short to settle and implement your ideas as a leader of a task. Operational elements sometimes take up a significant portion of your time and motivation. After one half of the year having passed already, you might notice that you are finally familiar with the tiny details of the project and you may find yourself ready to implement ideas, but wait a minute, time is almost over!

From the elections on, you are slowly getting the feeling of responsibility. If you also have a busy life outside ESTIEM, it may sometimes be “challenging”, if not coercive. Nevertheless if you have an adventurous spirit – we call it the ESTIEM spirit in this organisation – this challenge holds special weight for you, because you have the chance to shape ESTIEM! As I mentioned from another perspective above (Ents were wrong!), you are in the final decision and planning position, you can – or have to –, make your ideas come through. You might have to solve a financial debt problem and find a way to attract several companies. You will have to fill your Magazine’s page with quality articles, and know where and whom to ask for this. Let me tell this in another way, every trouble.  TIPS AND TRICKS Be hasty!

Enjoy it!

Motivate yourself, not the crowds! A motivated leader will attract them eventually.

In times of trouble there is always an emergency exit, don’t worry!

You are a ESTIEMer, behave accordingly.

Your project can always cooperate with other projects, take advantage of this.

Even if you are not a travel lover, after your one-year PL period, you will have many memories from different countries.

ESTIEM has two suits: working-hard, playinghard. You will have two suits as well.

Pay attention to your e-mail program.

Teamwork will gain its true meaning for you.

Use British English, not American English!

1) Ents are a fictional race from J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy world of Middle-earth.

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

INSIDE ESTIEM

40

It is Time to Take off Ties PETER GELBRICH

The Project Leader Experience

Being a leader of a project in ESTIEM is defiantly an honour. You are much more than an active member of ESTIEM; you are an active member pushing ESTIEM to new frontiers.

You‌ ...make friends with many good people all over Europe, ...travel to places you only saw pictures of before, ...lead a team of international students, ...work on something you can be proud of when it is over, ...earn many skills you thought you could not ever learn, ...build something that will be carried on in the future, ...work hard and play hard, ...and leave your mark in ESTIEM history!

After being a project leader of the Student Guide, these are the great rewards I now have from my one-year experience. For anyone contemplating about applying for such a position: Go ahead, broaden your horizons! 

41

INSIDE ESTIEM

Story of a Project Leader Question: Why should a girl leave parties at the Council Meeting in Porto and apply for a very popular leadership position in ESTIEM, with no local group behind the organisation of the biggest part of that event as usual? What can make that girl strive so persistently? Where does that courage come from – at least – to stand in front of 150 people asking her difficult questions? There is only one simple answer: “enthusiasm and belief lying underneath” My story started in a different way, because I was proposing something different, something new to the organisation. Of course I had some difficulties but I always had some people, “my friends”, helping me to carry out the big project – I can name many friends while writing this, but I believe they all know who they are and are smiling while they are reading this article. Even though there were challenges, at the end we all learned something; things can work out right if you commit your ideas and your work to it.

Are you wondering whether you are the appropriate leader? I have some recommendations for you. If you ever think about being a leader of TIMES, you should be self-confident and communicative. I think these are the most important issues you should care about. In TIMES we have a team of more than 50 people all around Europe and yes, it is not easy to get the responses you expect. This is where your communication skills kick in. Being always strict or easygoing is not the path you should follow. You should be the person consisting of many parts and know how to

communicate with different types of people. And here is where the team building part comes. You should know your team members personally and be the one who creates the team environment.

Afterwards the relations will follow within the team members. Many times your team will need a direction to follow and you will be the one to show them the right direction. Be self-confident because your team trusts you! You need to work hard and find out the right steps to follow and then turn the lights on for the team. There will be millions of questions; however your sweet board and all the nice committees will be there for you. No worries!

I want to thank once again to all of my team members and to my dear friends who were always there for me. Now after having retired from my position in ESTIEM, having graduated and started working, I remember all of the people and ESTIEM as a whole and I am happy about myself for making the right decision, to become a leader at that time. If you have any desire to be the TIMES Project Leader and you believe that you can create a value for it, do not hesitate to apply.

It is a very good opportunity to improve personally and work in an international environment in a professional way.

At the beginning of the article I said I have quit with all the parties. Now I should clear something out; I turned back to the stages at the next Council Meeting with my team members and friends, sometimes to try and create a song for TIMES, sometimes to dance in a swimming pool, and many times I’ve partied with them. So don’t you ever think that being a leader will not be fun! Once the work is done, you will have more fun than you ever had before, I promise.

Learn, improve, add and have fun in TIMES! 

DENİZ ASLAN

As we decided to bring up an article with the other project leaders – or I should say “former” project leaders – I was so excited to tell all the other ESTIEMers how I felt before, during and after my leadership time. Maybe this feeling, the excitement, was the ESTIEM spirit we were always talking about.

INSIDE ESTIEM

42

Being an Alumni Dear ESTIEMer, This could be you if you join the Alumni organisation of ESTIEM. FLORIAN KRÖGER

At the end of May our main event – the annual Alumni Meeting – took place in the Algarve in Portugal. It was the 14th meeting since the foundation of ESTIEM Alumni. About 45 people travelled from all over Europe to a wonderful beach resort close to Faro. During the General Assembly, which is the official body of our organisation, the Alumni Board presented the results of their initiatives and events, the ESTIEM board presented their plans for ESTIEM and we had elections on board members and the next place to have the meeting. It sounds much like a regular ESTIEM CM or an activity week. So what’s the difference? To give you a little insight, the new ESTIEM Alumni Board would like to introduce themselves: My name is Regina. My first contact with ESTIEM was in 1998 during my second year of studies in Galway. A Finnish exchange student mentioned a European organisation of IEM students and told us about the upcoming CM. I became LR and participated at the CM Karlsruhe ‘98. Though apprehensive at first – I did not know anybody and wasn’t too sure what would happen during the event – I did not regret it for a second! After my time in Galway I became a somewhat “passive” member of ESTIEM, still following the activities and sometimes participating, but not too actively involved.

After graduation it was clear to me that I wanted to join ESTIEM Alumni and now the time has come to abandon the passiveness and to finally become active!!

Activities will also be one of my main areas of focus for this board year. As VP of Administration I will organise and co-ordinate some exciting events around Europe for active Alumni, but also for those that may need to be reminded of the ESTIEM spirit again.

Outside of ESTIEM I worked in the IT department of Schenker AG in Essen for the past four years, developing, implementing and training a CRM solution. This is about to change and from July onwards I will work in Sales Controlling for Hangartner AG in Zurich.

If you are interested in organising an event for fellow ESTIEMers, or have a great idea for an event, please let me know!

My name is Ramon and some of you may know me from last year. This is my second year in the Alumni board, I just love this organisation too much to turn away! My first introduction to ESTIEM came in 1997, CM St Petersburg, where I was WGL for Global Vision. Since then I have visited 17 CMs and many more other ESTIEM activities. The hugely positive atmosphere, openmindedness and can-do mentality is unique. I haven’t found it in any other organisation with this abundance. And it’s a great place to meet some friends for life!

In this board year I plan to further strengthen the Europe-wide network. Some key issues will be the member database (content and use), activi-

43

INSIDE ESTIEM

It is you! to join the TIMES qualification back in 1999 forwarded me the invitation to the last Alumni meeting and this is how I became active again and elected president. Together with Regina and Ramon, we have the chance to coordinate, organise and foster the ESTIEM Alumni network.

I am sure this will be a thrilling year! We have some exciting events coming up. Finally, I hope that one day someone will reach out to you as well and remind you of the wonderful times you experienced with ESTIEM and therefore become an Alumnus.”

So did you figure out the difference? For my part I would say: Apart from being a bit older and wiser, losing or growing grey hair, and feeding the belly – there is no difference! We are you! So join us at one of the following events. We need you to keep the ESTIEM spirit alive! 

ties to meet old and new friends and travelling around to keep in contact with the ESTIEM students! Besides that, I will take care of the finance ALUMNI ACTIVITIES IN 2007/2008 ºº Alumni Meeting | Seville in ESTIEM Alumni. ºº

In real life, I work with KPN Telecom as a controller, so I may utilise some of the finance tricks I learn in Alumni! It’s a demanding job, but there will be time to keep on living the ESTIEM dream, meeting great people at great events, and hopefully you will be part of this!

ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº

Last but not least – my name is Florian, but most people call me Flo. I joined ESTIEM in 1999 in my first year of studies at a local TIMES qualification in Berlin. My track record of ESTIEM activities sounds almost the same. But after my exchange year in Linköping, Sweden I somehow focused on my studies and became an inactive ESTIEMer. In 2005 I finally graduated and started working as a management consultant for Capgemini, the French based consulting, technology and outsourcing company.

ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº

It must have been faith or just a coincidence.

But the same person who initially motivated me

Alumni Ski Event | Les Carros, French Alps ESTIEM Autumn Council Meeting | Bremen Half Marathon | Paris Marathon | Amsterdam Round Table | Amsterdam Round Table | Bremen Round Table | Frankfurt Round Table | Munich Round Table | Paris Round Table | Singapore Round Table | Stockholm Round Table | Berlin Round Table | Eindhoven Round Table | Helsinki Round Table | Istanbul Round Table | Seville Round Table | Zurich Christmas Market | Frankfurt Christmas Market | Hamburg ESTIEM Spring Council Meeting | Hamburg

INSIDE ESTIEM

44

Cultural Prejudice:

Turkish

ceren donmez

Different people have different behaviours, but they share same cultural similarities. In Turkey, like in other countries, attitudes vary form person to person. This change is a result of both the cultural mosaic of Turkey and the different characteristics of Turkish people. It was very hard to touch all of them, so I grouped them under four topics.

Turks are curious

Turks are very curious people. I do not know why we like to know everything that is happening around us. When you take a walk in Turkey, you probably see a group of people watching an extraordinary situation. The crowd gets bigger and bigger. Newcomers start to ask ‘What is happening?’. Moreover, some remain there until everything is okay because they wonder if others need something.

Turks are helpful

Suppose you get lost somewhere in Turkey and ask somebody to help you find your way. People you talk to will always be ready to answer. They would describe the way or find someone else to do it if they really do not know. Do not worry if they do not speak English, because Turks can explain everything by gesticulation.

Turks are hostpitable

Turkish people give importance to their guests. Householders try to prepare everything perfectly in order to delight you. Delicious Turkish dishes are cooked and served on the dining table, as if it was a painting. If you are a guest

of a Turkish family, do not eat too much during the main dish, because tasteful delights and fresh fruit are waiting for you! You will not only get fatter but also have signs of good memories while leaving Turkey.

Turks are talktative

We Turks have an idea in almost every matter and we make always comments to the issues without hesitating whether we know completely the subject or not. The point is to create a conversation, something to speak about, share the feelings inside us. Because of being affable, Turks try to speak with people every time. If you feel depressed, if you seem to be desperate a Turk may understand you and he or she would try to make you feel better by encouraging you to talk about your problems. 

45

INSIDE ESTIEM

What is happening in LG

Bucharest?

How do you introduce the ESTIEM Spirit to this particular already formed group? Well it is easy, you do not. You just help them realise they have had it forever.

Our projects so far have been divided into internal projects – organised by VWI LG Bucharest for students in Bucharest and members – and external projects, related to VWI Germany. The internal projects include job fairs, case studies and workshops, trainings, and of course team building activities.

The most important project we have with VWI Germany is the HGV or Hochschulgruppenversammlung – the assembly of the VWI local gropus. We hosted it successfully for the first time in 2005, and now, in 2007, we are proud to be hosting it again.

Since September, we have also ESTIEM activities in our event portfolio, since then we have organised our first Regional Coordination Meeting,

For now, one of our highest priorities is to find partners to support our activities, since the number of activities we are planning to organise in the future will increase significantly mainly due to our involvement in ESTIEM. Our enthusiasm and motivation actually has the following reasons: ESTIEM is the perfect opportunity to learn our limits and cross them, to discover our abilities and to improve our skills.

But that alone would not be enough if it were not for the people: as we have learned both from our experience as VWI and from our participation at other ESTIEM events, teamwork builds friendships and turns work and learning into fun, adding commitment and responsibility to all activities. 

andreea sabo

So what has been happening in Bucharest?

Who are we and what do we do? We are VWI (Verband Deutscher Wirtschaftsingenieure) Hochschulgruppe Bukarest e.V., the only VWI local group outside Germany. And recently we became ESTIEM Local Group Bucharest – for the moment, observers. Our local group, starting as VWI, was established in 2001. At first, there were only five members working alone on a few projects, the situation has changed: we are now more than 30 active members and more than 100 registered members, all of us studying Industrial Engineering and Management in German at the “Politehnica” University in Bucharest.

between the 13th and 16th of September. For this ESTIEM project, we used all the knowledge and experience we have gathered in the past years as VWI, together with the ESTIEM experience gained from our fellow Local Groups.

AGENDA

07 08

Check the latest updated event information at www.estiem.org and register for your favourite events through the ESTIEM portal. See you somewhere in Europe!

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

3 Dec – 9 Dec Visionary Marketing Seminar | Kaiserslautern-Karlsruhe “Marketing in the Network Economy”

2 Nov – 7 Nov 35th ESTIEM Council Meeting | Bremen 17 Nov – 22 Nov Visionary Marketing Seminar | Brusels “European Marketing” 23 Nov – 25 Nov Regional Coordination Meeting | Ankara METU 24 Nov – 27 Nov Visionary Marketing Seminar | Berlin “Marketing through New Media”

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

4 Feb – 10 Feb Activity week | Lyon 6 Feb – 10 Feb Visionary Marketing Seminar | Helsinki “Marketing as a Part of Corporate Strategy” 12 Feb – 16 Feb TIMES Semi Final | Vaasa 14 Feb – 17 Feb Regional Coordination Meeting | Lund 18 Feb – 21 Feb TIMES Semi Final | Famagusta 19 Feb – 25 Feb Visionary Marketing Seminar | Trondheim “Big Thinking in a Small Country” 18 Feb – 21 Feb TIMES Semi Final | Novi Sad

APRIL

7 Apr – 11 Apr Visionary Marketing Seminar | Eindhoven “Marketing of High Innovative Products” 8 Apr – 13 Apr 36th ESTIEM Council Meeting | Hamburg

10 – 15 Jan Visionary Marketing Seminar | Cambridge

“Branded – The Importance of Branding and Product Design in the 21st Century”

MARCH

3 Mar – 7 Mar TIMES Semi Final | Porto 25 Mar – 30 Mar Visionary Marketing Seminar | Grenoble

“Marketing in the White Gold” 30 Mar – 3 Apr Visionary Marketing Seminar | Linkoping

“Functional Sales - a New Marketing Concept” 31 Mar – 5 Apr TIMES Final | Karlsruhe

MAY

7 May – 11 May Visionary Marketing Seminar | Warsaw “Promotion and Advertisement in Production Companies” 15 May – 18 May Regional Coordination Meeting | Dortmund

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