ESTIEM Magazine | Spring 2010 | Growth vs. Sustainability

European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management Issue 38 2010/1 | ISSN 0874-5242 | Price 0 Euro | www.estiem.org

INTERNATIONAL MASTER’S PROGRAMME IN BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY

markets. Multinational companies and innovative

Would you like to be one of them?

Come and study in Tampere Finland!

start-ups around the world require talented

Yearly application period: December 1st-March 15th.

Today’s business world demands engineers capable of managing businesses in global

business graduates with an intercultural mindset and understanding of new technologies.

Find out more at:

www.tut.fi/tsbt

Celebrate with us!

ESTIEMs 20th Anniversary

OlympiXX - ESTIEM Anniversary Event, Karlsruhe, June 30th - July 04th, 2010 Council Meeting Finland, November 2010

INtroduCtIoN Editorial President’s Speech Projects & Committees

33

INSIdE EStIEM Introduction to EStIEM Introducing: Board 2010 Guiding Students to live their best More than two Ks: vision K2K An Inside into the Public relations Committee Create your opportunities, work with the Grants Committee different Games, Same Goals Behind the curtains of tIMES SF Lisbon how does CrM really work?

EStIEM Alumni round table Brussels CM zurich reCoM Seville training New trainers Summer Academy romania From previous Project Leaders What’s happening in Cambridge?

4 5 6

8 10 13 14 15 15 16 17 18 19 20 22 23 24 25 27 28 30 31 32

FoCuS Cities & Sustainable Growth Some notes on the puzzle of economic development & sustainability A new perspective on an old contestation Growth versus|and Stability Assessing the risk before making steps towards Growth

33 34 36 37 38 40 41 42 42 44

StudENt GuIdE Exchange Programms: Broadening your horizons Crossing the boundaries of familiar Seville - Pieces of history at every corner Cultural Prejudice on romanians

EStIEM ANNIvErSAry EStIEM - Spirituality Make it an anniversary to remember!

CM Finland olympixx - EStIEM Anniversary Event

46 47 48 49

CArEEr When job seekers invade Facebook Study Portals What we look for: Success drivers of P&G Ever wondered what it is like to work for P&G junior Management Program of BoSCh

44 INtroduCtIoN EdItorIAL IMPrINt Project Leader Isidora Strboja Editorial Staff Isidora Strboja Terhi Marttila

Dear ESTIEMers...

Layout Andrea Deutsch

Article Acquisition Isidora Strboja Terhi Marttila Geoffrey van Ijzendoorn Nazli Oguz Advertisement Acquisition Terhi Marttila Geoffrey van IJzendoorn Contact magazine@estiem.org ESTIEM Permanent Office Paviljoen B-6 P.O.Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands Fax: 0031-(0)40 2473871 info@estiem.org www.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.

Our Partners

ISIdorA StroBjA

Design Public Relations Committee David Christian Berg Andrea Deutsch

Welcome to the first issue which celebrates twenty years of the organisation we all hold so dear – ESTIEM. Do you know the story how it all started? You will have an opportunity to find out on your own, the real version. Don’t believe any other ones.

This story of commitment, camaraderie, curiosity and knowledge lives on every time one of us logs in to ESTIEM Portal, participates in an event, works at his or her University, improves the way we do things and in so many other ways. It spreads through the wide network of past and current members, who in their own ways contribute to this group of students of Industrial Engineering and Management with a professional approach. Throughout a number of anniversary events, our members, Local Groups, will show what makes them proud about ESTIEM, why did they become a part of it, and even more important, what sets us apart as a group from other student organisations, other than our field of studies?

Still, have you ever wondered where the limits to our organisation are? We have a system of Projects and Committees which work with and support each other. We try to maintain the network we already built, and if possible, expand it even more. Does our growth threaten our stability? Anniversaries present a great opportunity for us to see where we stand. Now, on ESTIEM’s twentieth birthday, it is more important than ever before to look back and see what brought us to this place. Or as someone once said, in order to plan our future, we ought to know our past. Without any wish to be too dramatic, I would just like to point to everyone’s attention to stop and wonder, what have they done today for ESTIEM?

5

INtroduCtIoN

President’s Speech There is a clear difference between sustainable “A really great talent finds its happiness in exdevelopment and sustainable growth. Sustainable ecution.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe development refers to the “growth” in a qualitative matter while sustainable growth refers to the In high ESTIEM, growth in a quantitative matter1. Many people believe that the financial downturn stops us from growing. In fact, it paves the way for a different mentality: that of sustainable development.

GEoFFrEy vAN IjzENdoorN

After the global financial downturn of 2009, many companies have been getting a bunker-mentality and decided to cut down on employees, stop expanding, and find any other means to cut costs.

Many other companies decided to take this opportunity to grow and expand in different ways.

Through our resilience, creativity, and the entrepreneurial mindset of the IEM student, ESTIEM wíll develop itself. As you will read in this issue of the ESTIEM Magazine, there are also plenty of opportunities left for you to expand your horizon, to grow, to do more and see more. But to make this possible, your ideas are needed too. Get active, roll up your sleeves and take the initiative!

In order to maintain long-term survival, just like those companies and other organisations that show resilience through growth through qualitative means, ESTIEM also faces this challenge. With fewer resources we need to become more effective and efficient, but still maintain our strong character through our ESTIEM Spirit.

references 1. Baldwin, r. (1998). does sustainability require growth? In I. Goldin, & L. A. Winters, the Economics of Sustainable development (pp. 51-53). New york, Ny: Press Syndicate of the university of Cambridge.

INtroduCtIoN

Projects &Committees 6

TIMES

ESTIEM Magazine

T he Tou r n a ment I n M a n a gement a nd Engineering Skills (TIMES) is today considered the largest pan-European case study competition for Industrial Engineering and Management students. This prestigious, highly acclaimed event is the flagship project of the Europe-wide student organisation ESTIEM. Two qualification rounds are required to be selected for the TIMES Final. The Final eventually brings together the winning teams from each Semi-Final to determine Europe’s “IEM Students of the Year”.

ESTIEM Magazine, the official publication of ESTIEM, provides the perfect platform to reach the target group of approximately 47 000 students of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) at universities all over Europe. The Magazine is one of the most important PR tools of ESTIEM. The ESTIEM Magazine is published twice a year and distributed among Industrial Engineering and Management students, graduates and also professors and employees of companies across Europe, through the ESTIEM network. The Magazine is free of charge. The issues are released in time for the semi-annual Council Meeting.

Vision

Vision Seminar Series aims to improve the personal skills and capabilities of the Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) students in Europe. The seminars contain a balanced mixture of academic lectures, workshops and company visits, which are combined with cultural and free-time activities of the organizing city. Through those activities the participants of a Vision Seminar develop themselves both personally and professionally. Each year’s Vision Seminar series focuses on one main topic to which all Vision seminars are connected. However, every individual seminar focuses on one particular aspect of that main topic.

The current main topic is Vision - Efficiency in Communication.

Europe3D

Within a 5-day seminar series the participants get a basic picture of the hosting country. A special focus thereby lays on national characteristics in politics and economy. Lectures given by experts from politics, science and economy shall provide the participants with a theoretical insight. On the other hand the Project’s aim is to integrate our guests actively in this seminar. Especially to include the practical aspect, the Project wants to cooperate with companies for excursions and lectures.

Summer Academy

T hrough the Summer Academy Project, ESTIEM recognises the importance of and takes responsibility for providing knowledge of ethics and sound leadership among future leaders of Europe. It was set up to bring international students together during summer holidays to engage in open discussion, group work, debate and private study under a senior Academic Leader.

Student Guide

T he Student Guide is a bridge between European students who wants to share information. The Project has two main goals: Firstly to provide study and cultural information on countries, cities and universities to students of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) and secondly to give an overview of differences in education in different countries for students, universities and other interested organisations.

7

Public Relations Committee

Financial and Legal Committee

The aim of the Public Relations Committee is to take care of ESTIEM’s outer appearance. The Committee is responsible for communicating the brand of ESTIEM and increasing the awareness both inside and outside of ESTIEM. The PR Committee, PRC, works with several different tools to achieve this, for instance designing PR material, creating design guidelines, and working on press visibility.

The work is done both on Central and Local level.

The Financial and Legal Committee predominantly consists of former and current Vice Presidents of Finance and the Financial Controllers.

In general, the Financial and Legal Committee has an advisory function and deals with how to perform the financial responsibilities of ESTIEM. Members Committee

Providing trainings on ESTIEM events and on local level to stimulate a continuous development of ESTIEM and ESTIEMers through knowledge transfer on a personal level.

The ESTIEM Members Committee supports the member groups of ESTIEM and provides information for those students who are interested in joining the ESTIEM organisation by forming their own local group. They guide the interested groups through the whole process, starting from establishing contact – via the guest and observation period – until fully pledged membership. Also, Members Committee takes care about Local Group Exchanges, Requirements that Local Groups are expected to fulfil, tutoring Local Groups that are already accepted to ESTIEM and provides Servicing for Local Groups that have issues about any possible topic (HR, PR, Recruitment, Fundraising) and with that tries to foster connections between Local Groups.

Corporate Relations Committee

Information Technology Committee

The Corporate Relations Committee coordinates the relations between ESTIEM and companies jointly with the Board. The Committee’s work covers a number of fields with the aim of improving and simplifying ESTIEM’s relations with companies, such as updating marketing material, improving Partnership processes and preparing company surveys. The Corporate Relations Committee also plays an active role in supervising and supporting Projects and other Committees with regards to sponsors.

The IT Committee maintains the mail, intranet, and web servers of ESTIEM and coordinates all IT-related development in the organisation, such as regarding the IT backend system (.NET platform/C#). In addition, its members offer troubleshooting services and technical advice to ESTIEMers.

Knowledge Management Committee

The Knowledge Management Committee (KMC) does two things; Updating/creating Best Practice Documents containing guidelines – from organising a project to how to be a leader – by documenting the collective experiences of ESTIEMers throughout time (available online on the ESTIEM Portal).

Grants Committee

The Grants Committee supports ESTIEM’s applications for EU Grants and aims to establish and develop knowledge on public funding opportunities and their application procedures. It also wants to share the existing knowledge with as many ESTIEMers as possible and to support more and more Local Groups apply for an EU Grant for their events.

INtroduCtIoN

8 INSIdE EStIEM Back in 1990,

students from fi ve diff erent 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).

After 20 years, it has grown into an organisation bringing together 47 000 students from 63 universities in 26 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. Through involvement in ESTIEM, students get an opportunity to experience different 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 openminded 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 so called ‘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, Europe3D, 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.

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 seven of them at the moment: the Information Technology Committee, the Public Relations Committee, the Members Committee, the Knowledge Management Committee, the Financial and Legal Committee, the Corporate Relations Committee and the youngest one – Grants 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.

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!

9

Introducing: Board 2010 A new year, a new ESTIEM Board.

Who are they? Read what the old Board wants to know about the new one.

From an exchange participant to President Geoffrey van IJzendoorn - President interviewed by Tobias Hemmerlein, President 2009 1. If you would be a fruit, which one would it be and why?

I would be a coconut: hard, ugly and hairy on the outside, but sweet and pure on the inside.

4. What does ESTIEM Alumni mean for you?

2. How did you join ESTIEM and what have you done so far?

I joined ESTIEM in 2007 when a friend of mine, Jeroen Hoeks, got in the board of Interactie (Eindhoven). Then I went to St. Petersburg on a Local Group Exchange (these really do get people active) where I got to know more about ESTIEM and got “hooked” as it was an extremely great experience. Then Bob van den Bergh (TIMES Project Leader 2008) asked me if I would like to join him for the board of Interactie.

Then I became Local Responsible and Secretary of the local board. I went to the Council Meeting in Hamburg (spring 2008) where I met Tobias Hemmerlein, the later President of ESTIEM (2009).

At the LR Parade in Porto, 2008, I became really active in the Knowledge Management Committee.

Later in the Council Meeting Famagusta I became Committee Leader until, in the Council Meeting Zurich, I got elected to be President of ESTIEM. 3. If you were an animal, which one would you be and why?

For many people who know me it is obvious: a monkey. I can get crazy like one, but they are also entertaining and witty.

To me that is another way of referring to the legends of ESTIEM. ESTIEM will celebrate its 20th birthday in 2010 which means that we have 20 years of great stories. This rich history stems from what they have established all those years ago. Whatever we deal with now, and a lot of the “new” ideas we have, have already been thought of by them. It is therefore of the utmost importance for us to remain in touch with the Alumni, to ask them questions, to listen to their advice, but also to join the ESTIEM Alumni after graduation, and to continue to contribute. This way you will be able to pave new roads, so that future ESTIEMers get more opportunities to develop themselves.

5. What do you consider the biggest challenge for ESTIEM in 2010?

Most of the time they are the challenges ESTIEM faces almost each year. We have financial challenges, we need to establish new contacts with companies, but at the same time we are here for the IEM students who want to expand their international network and develop themselves. To us Board Members, this service to the students is what keeps us busy. In an international network such as ESTIEM where people keep in touch

INSIdE EStIEM

through virtual means, the biggest challenge for everyone is always communication.

4. What will be the greatest improvement for a normal user in the new ESTIEM Portal and which new feature would you like to implement?

6. If you won 1.000.000 euro in a lottery, how would ESTIEM benefit from it?

I think the most noticeable improvement will be the design and navigation. A new feature I would like to implement is a tailor made module for job classifieds.

I have thought of this for many times before actually. “If I would be rich enough, I would donate a lot of money to ESTIEM, because I love it and everyone can do whatever they want.” However, you would take away the challenges that make ESTIEM to what it is. It would be the same as how to treat my future children: would I rather have a spoiled brat, or a child with character and a strong will who learned about life through the challenges everyone faces? I would go for the latter. Of course, the moment ESTIEM is in trouble, I would help out, but frankly, we can count ourselves lucky in this world if you look at it from a broader perspective. I am already happy with what we have now.

Wi t h Si mp l e IT y o u g et si mp l e answers that hit bull ’s eye! harald Schmidt-horix - Vice President of Administration interviewed by Verena Hohn, Vice President of Administration 2009 1. What would you do if you reached the end of the internet?

There are two possible scenarios. I might start to live a normal healthy life, with normal real-life interaction. More likely, however, I would curl up in a fetal position until someone arrives with a straitjacket.

2. In which city would you like to see a new ESTIEM Local Group and why?

Reykjavík, because then we would soon have two Local Groups in Norway.

3. Describe your co-Boardie Sebastian Geese in 3 words!

German German German. But do I detect a slight Hispanic heritage? No, I do not.

5. Would you sacrifice yourself by living 3 years without internet if ESTIEM would get €1.000.000 in case you succeed?

This strikes me as a very hypothetical situation.. I would say yes, provided you pay me up front, as I would require a three year's worth supply of valium.

Future proactive Committee for the better future of ESTIEM! Sebastian Geese - Vice President of Finance interviewed by Luis Godinho, Vice President of Finance 2009 1. What was your first contact with ESTIEM?

Hmm that's quite some time ago, in autumn 2006, when our Local Responsible asked me if I wanted to go to the Council Meeting in AnkaraBilkent. I did not have a clue about ESTIEM and only went there because I liked travelling. For my first event this was very overwhelming: so many people and all the information. But as you can see, I liked it and wanted more of the ESTIEM Spirit.

2. If you were a currency, which one would you be and why?

I guess that I would be the Euro. Not only because I live in the Euro-Region, but also as we have quite some things in common. The Euro covers a lot of countries and I travel to a lot of countries.

Furthermore, the Euro seems to be rather stable compared to some other currencies, which is similar to me as I don't tend to be very impulsive.

3. What is your favourite hobby?

There are two to be mentioned - skiing and

scuba-diving. Unfortunately, both are rather expensive and therefore I cannot enjoy them very often. Hopefully there will be more of that in the future when I start earning some money.

4. What is your goal for ESTIEM in 2010?

When looking back after 2010, I want to be able to say that our board left ESTIEM stable and prepared for the future. In particular, I want to leave it financially stable so that there will be a good base for the upcoming years. And, of course, all ESTIEMers shall remember 2010 as a year worth ESTIEM's anniversary.

5. How do you see ESTIEM in three years?

In three years I will probably see ESTIEM from an Alumnus perspective. But seriously... I hope that ESTIEM will have at least one Local Group in each European country where IEM is taught and that all these will actively participate in ESTIEM. We will be able to call ESTIEM a strong and vital network all over Europe without any doubts.

6. How will you shape ESTIEM's Finances to support its future?

I want to make Finances more attractive.

People should not only see it as boring work done behind the curtain, but as a topic to actively contribute to. I want to get more people involved in it, people who actively work in the Financial and Legal Committee to reach a good understanding of what is going on. I want to develop the Financial and Legal Committee from its mainly advisory function as it is now, to a proactive Committee.

The Princess of the Board Terhi Marttila - Vice President of Public Relations interviewed by Andreea Sabo, Vice President of Public Relations 2009 1. Tell us about the moment when you knew that you really belong in ESTIEM.

There are actually two moments like that. The first of them was already during my first ESTIEM

event: I really felt the ESTIEM spirit when all the participants of the Vision in Brussels, 2007, were like a big team, even though some of them were really experienced ESTIEMers and some newcomers like me. The second moment was in the Council Meeting in Famagusta, 2008, when I suddenly realised that I really know these people around me - and that I really like them and belong there with them.

2. In your Board life right now, which part do you enjoy the most? (something you can't experience as a Committee Leader)

As corny as it may sound, I really enjoy that at the moment I am able to have a picture of the whole organisation and what's going on in it, instead of just a smaller part of it all.

3. What do you think will be most challenging for ESTIEM's Public Relations and Corporate Relations in 2010?

For the Public Relations, the most challenging part is to find the best possible ways of promoting the 20th Anniversary of ESTIEM and to make this organisation more visible that way. To really make the most of this special year. For the part of our Corporate Relations, I have to mention the overall financial crisis and convincing companies that ESTIEM is really worth their efforts, regardless of the current situation.

4. Anything special going on in your life this year besides ESTIEM?

I was about to say that in 2010 ESTIEM is all there is in my life, but that's not completely true.

Apart from ESTIEM work, I am trying to take the courses I have left at the University before - hopefully - starting my Master's thesis in 2011. And I try not to forget my non-ESTIEM friends and to spend time with them, too!

5. Describe your co-Boardies - 3 adjectives for each, all must be different!



Antti: energetic, headstrong, socially friendly



Sebastian: hard-working, flexible, empathic

INtroduCtIoN

12



Geoffrey: supporting, funny, doing instead of talking



Harald: understanding, curious, questioning Keep the ESTIEM spirit flowing!

Antti Mattila - Vice President of Activities interviewed by Sebastian Katzung, Vice President of Activities 2009

1. What would be your favorite place to sing the ESTIEM song?

There are so many of them. If I had to choose, I would say an airplane or a tram full of ESTIEMers.

not think it's going to be hard to make this year legendary. My main goal is to support all the goals that we set as a Board and to enjoy my life.

4. Which character do you think you are in your Board? For example the talker, doer, administrator, social person, ESTIEM spirit keeper, lover, rock star, down to earth person, cool guy/girl, nervous one, beloved guy/girl, problem solver, problem creator, Yogi Bear etc...

I am really talkative and social, and that also describes my character in the Board quite well. When it comes to working, I usually like to solve problems quickly and start doing instead of talking. In free-time, I like to keep the ESTIEM spirit flowing and play a little bit of rock star once in a while.

2. What means ESTIEM Alumni for you?

5. Which character do you think fit best to the others? (no explanation)

There are three main things that come to my mind:

If I have to choose from that list, here is my selection:

1. It is a great platform to stay in touch with your ESTIEM friends after graduation,



Geoffrey: doer, talker and ESTIEM spirit keeper

2. It illustrates the professional approach that ESTIEM is built on and



Terhi: beloved girl and sometimes the nervous one

3. It tells you not to fear graduation, as there is also life after that.



Harald: down to earth person and cool guy

3. Do you feel like carrying an extra heavy burden on your shoulders because you are a member of the 20th ESTIEM Board in the special year of 2010? And what is your main goal for 2010?



Sebastian: beloved guy and administrator (i.e. hard worker)

No, not really. Of course the anniversary events will create some extra work and coordination, but I do not see it as a burden at all. Thanks also for the good work of our predecessors, I do

6. What is your favorite color? (If it is black, please explain!)

This is an easy one; bright green. Even the colour of my car is lime. 

13

INSIdE EStIEM

ESTIEM, Guiding Students to Live their Best

The starting point of the Project is to promote intercultural and academic exchange through a platform where students themselves share their experiences and knowledge. The aim is to provide information about a university/city/country through the students of that particular one. To pursue this aim we launched a wiki system in June which can be reached on the Project’s webpage and is edited by everybody. The system has been structured around three titles: 1. Study information, where we ask for information about the application procedures, courses delivered, quality of education, etc; 2. Practical information, where we gather information about accommodation, important issues like health, residence permit, etc and living conditions; 3. Student activities, where we collect information about the student organisations, nightlife, sports facilities, etc.

In August, after the completion of the sample page Trondheim to give a better understanding of the expected content, we started contacting our ESTIEM Local Groups to ask for their contribution. Currently we have a database team whose

members are responsible for a certain amount of Local Groups and keep regular contact with them.

Together with the support of ESTIEM Board, our main goal as the Project team is to collect information from all the Local Groups as soon as possible and to put this valuable and helpful database into the service of ESTIEMers and other IEM students.

Another tool that we employ to provide information about universities/countries is the semiannually published Handbook. We collect three basic articles for each issue which are about ‘one of the ESTIEM member universities’, ‘abroad experiences’ and the ‘education and/or culture in Europe’.

These articles are personal experiences or ideas of their authors. They constitute the ‘Student Guide’ part of ESTIEM Magazine and are also published on the Student Guide webpage under the link “ExplorEurope”.

On the whole, the Student Guide takes the challenge to promote intercultural and academic exchange as its core mission. The best way to pursue this goal is to facilitate the decision-making period for students at the edge of their final decision of studying abroad. Some students need information about universities to decide at which one to study and to know what to do there after their arrival, and some others have the information needed by these students. What the Project does is that it creates a platform where this knowledge transfer can be processed and hence the exchange can be promoted. To complete this database sooner with the most qualified content possible, we are looking forward to seeing your contribution based on your diverse experiences!

BErNA BAS

The Student Guide is formed as a service provided to all IEM students interested in studying in Europe at a university with a high quality of IEM education.

With the Student Guide, ESTIEM aims to motivate students for intercultural and academic experiences within Europe in a time where borders are disappearing and an increasing amount of students are interested in studying in a different university in different country.

INSIdE EStIEM

14

MorE thAN tWo Ks : Did we only extend our knowledge and were we only hosted by really kind people? Is that sentence enough to describe the week in Germany ?

NAzLI oGuz

Never ! I must say the week was awesome considering all its aspects. We spent a week full of technology and learned about the subject ‘Me, You and the Machine’ during this Vision K2K, mostly through visits to technology centers .

The first three days of the Vision were in Kaiserslautern which is a small (it takes two hours to see every point of the town) and really sweet town. This part of the Vision started with Glühwein and Sunday shopping in a Christmas Market. Afterwards, we discovered the resource of the energy that Kaiserslautern needs, through a visit to a coal fabric which turns tons of coal into energy.

In the following days, we had a chance to observe a sample assembly line during our visit to the ‘Smart Factory’ where everything is controlled by wireless orders and a clear communication between the machines exists. Through this communication, those machines are able to determine the production process, whether to continue it or not considering the feedback, and to sort the defective products without human orders. We spent most of our time in Kaiserslautern in the ‘Int Club’ playing games, singing the ESTIEM song many times and cooking traditional meals all together.

The Karlsruhe part of the Vision also had a good start with ice-skating and discovering secret talents among the participants. Entertainment continued with our visit to “Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie” (ZKM). ZKM is a museum that doesn’t resemble any other museums I’ve seen.

K2K

It is full of extraordinary machines that draw portraits, write letters in handwriting, and put your 3d image on a theatre stage . They also make you attend a theatre play as a player instantly or make you ‘hear’ voices through your elbows!

Two of the most interesting visits were at research departments of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The first one was to the ‘Smart Room’ where a new technology is developed to control the images projected on a wall without touching but only pointing a finger at them and using voice. This technology is provided only by the cameras perceiving every point of the room. The second one was to Forschungszentrum Informatik (FZI). We visited a sample home which is designed for the elderly and full of technology created to make their life easier. Lastly one of the professors of KIT, Mr. Jordan, informed us about the difference between the informing and information systems . We also learned about simulation technologies.

Finally, what about the entertainment part? The two Local Groups prepared excellent parties for us but I must confess that the most exciting one was the Straba Party. In a tram going through the city, there were approximately 200 people singing the ESTIEM song in their white clothes! It can be said that the Tram party is one of the 100 things that should be done before death.

All in all, I would like to thank Local Group Kaiserslautern and Local Group Karlsruhe again and to suggest to all ESTIEMers to experience Vision K2K! 

15

INSIdE EStIEM

An insight into the

Public Relations Committee Do you know what the Public Relations Committee (PRC) is about?

The Public Relations Committee develops a consistent corporate design in all the published materials: for instance, the posters distributed to all the Local Groups during the Council Meetings.

We also keep a set of promotion materials up-todate. When preparing communication concerning ESTIEM, remember the presentations and templates made for you, found in the ESTIEM Portal!

The Public Relations Committee is also in

Finally, our main mission is to assist all the ESTIEMers who need help or advice concerning Public Relations. We design logos, banners, posters... or help ESTIEMers design what they need. Whenever you are in this situation, do not hesitate to contact us! And if you want to join the Committee and enhance the ESTIEM brand with us, just contact the Committee Leader (Anne.Laure.

Ladier@estiem.org)!

ANNE LAurE LAdIEr

Our main task is to develop and assure the continuity of the ESTIEM brand inside and outside ESTIEM. This means all kind of promotion you can imagine. Together with all the ESTIEMers, we want to communicate ESTIEM as a professional, open-minded and exciting network of IEM students.

charge of Media Relations. We want to enhance the media cooperation of ESTIEM, on local and central level. We already cooperate with a German career magazine (Staufenbiel) and currently work on new cooperation with a Turkish newspaper. To motivate the Local Groups to have closer cooperation with media, we develop a Media Database collecting the articles published about ESTIEM all over Europe.

If you need any help with Media Relations, contact us!

Create your opportunities, work with the Grants Committee!

The Grants Committee helps ESTIEM and its Local Groups benefit from the great opportunity, the European Grants. Developing our skills require a lot of research, creativity and work. We have made significant progress, but with more manpower we could do spectacular things.

By helping us you help yourself. By joining the Grants Committee you will gain knowledge and skills important to ESTIEM, as well as yourself and your Local Group. Imagine a stronger ESTIEM, enjoying the financial support of the European Grant! Imagine the big difference it would mean for organising your events! Grants can give you freedom to put more of your awesome ideas into practice in ESTIEM. Together we can make this happen! 

MArIA - ALExANdrA Bujor

You are an ESTIEMer so you like to travel, work and have fun with your friends from all over Europe. You are an open-minded young European, who believes in volunteer work, intercultural communication, collaboration and youth exchange.

But did you know that these are some of the most important concepts of the European Union which the European Grantors also appreciate? Our structure, goals and achievements lead us to this funding source that was created for student associations like ESTIEM. Especially in these times of worldwide financial crisis we should turn to more secure sponsors. The European Grantors have a certain amount of money at their disposal to be given away.

It is our job to learn how to present our assets in the right way, so that we qualify to receive it. It is both our chance and duty to exploit that.

INSIdE EStIEM

16

different Games, Same Goals FLorIAN PIEttE

When I was younger, « Age of Empires » was my favourite computer game. Now when I’ve grown up, ESTIEM has become my new hobby. Even though the game is different, my goal remains the same. I want to reach unknown nations and make non-ESTIEMers aware of ESTIEM’s existence. In other words, I want to spread the network and add some ESTIEM stars to the map of Europe.

On one hand, a company selling high quality products to very satisfied customers does not need excessive quantity of advertisement because word of mouth does the thing on its own. We are like these satisfied customers. We tried ESTIEM and we liked it. But after having convinced all our friends to join, we still want to tell people how amazing it is . That is the reason why we work for Approaching.

Approaching New Universities is one of the four Task Groups of the Member Committee. Its task is to help the Board achieve one of its goals: “ESTIEM has Local Groups in each and every European country where IEM studies are offered according to the ESTIEM statutes”. My strategy course taught me that if you want to be successful, you first need a goal and after that an appropriate strategy made of plans and tasks. That is how the Approaching Task Group works. Being aware of our goals enables us to perpetually keep on mind what we work for and rethink our tasks and processes in order to become more efficient and keep our motivation at the highest level. I do my best to motivate people who collaborate with me and want to make them feel proud of their contribution.

On the other hand, I’ve discovered ESTIEM lately. My involvement in it has shaped me somehow and my life would have been different without it . Sometimes I think about the coincidence that pushed me into the arms of our lovely organization.

Who else would I have been? Probably a less active student, with no international and culture awareness and I would have a hazier image of my professional perspectives. This outlook convinced me to put effort into offering that opportunity to as many people as possible. I do not know who brought ESTIEM in Brussels but I am glad that someone did it.

There are many reasons for you to get involved in our Task Group. Most people would probably tell you that they wanted to get more involved in ESTIEM, that they wanted to take their first step to the central level and that Approaching seemed interesting. Another explanation to this involvement is both “unconscious marketing” and “questioning yourself ”.

All this work would be useless if we were not sure that other people take care of these new ESTIEMers. We have Local Group Servicing to answer any questions, Local Group Requirements to evaluate their situations and Local Group Activation to reactivate sleeping Local Groups. Approaching is the first step for a high quality member and other Task Groups of the Members Committee do the rest. Still, none of this would be possible without the joint efforts of everyone from the whole Committee! 

17

INSIdE EStIEM

Behind the Curtains of the Lisbon

TIMES Semi Final

Next I want to thank my fellow organisers: Patrícia Ribeiro, Paulo Melancia, Marthe Rodrigues, João Barata, Vasco Moreira, Marta Silva, Daniel Dias, Cátia Costa, Francisco Guimarães, João Félix, Ricardo Caetano, Gonçalo Marques Mendes, Francisco Guimarães, Diogo Nunes and Jorge Guimarães. Finally all other entities that offered their support: the Municipal Government of Oeiras, Lisbon Convention Bureau, Instituto Superior Técnico, Luso, Sagres, BPI and AEIST. It all began a year ago in the 2009 Poznan Semi Final, where the, then TIMES Committee Leader, Mladen Radisic, asked us if Local Group Lisbon was interested in organising a Semi Final in 2010. After returning to Lisbon we bounced the idea around with the remainder of our Local Group but the idea was put on hold.

At least until João Barata called me from Council Meeting Grenoble: “So what’s the deal?

Are we going to organise a semi-final?” to which I responded with another question: “Until when do we have to decide?” expecting to hear something like a month or two… “Five minutes ago” he responded.

Almost a year later I can now affirm that the event was a huge success: from exquisite dinners, a great hostel in downtown Lisbon to sightseeing in beautiful Lisbon and Oeiras, the days of the event were packed with things to do before and after the cases. Even the cases were original, cre-

ated by us and our main partners especially for the TIMES Semi Final.

The event was quite a big risk for our small but quickly growing Local Group; our financial situation was far from secure when we decided to host the event, and up until December we got worried about what to do if we didn’t find partners.

Luckily (and with plenty of hard work) we found support from the before mentioned entities who were glad to help such a worthwhile project.

The jury, composed of university professors and notorious figures, was well impressed with the quality of all the presentations, especially the ones from Local Group Helsinki.

The event was a great personal experience. I find TIMES to be a fascinating project and it was incredibly rewarding to be behind the curtains putting everything in place. We took a risk and it paid off. Now Local Group Lisbon is more motivated than ever after organising its first big event in a long time. I know I made the event sound like a bed of roses, and of course we had many difficulties, but I can say without any doubt that the good outweighs the bad any day. Once again thanks to everyone who made this event possible and made it the success that it was. You can be sure this isn’t the last you’ll hear from the group on the nose of Europe! 

xAvIEr AzCuE

First and foremost I want to thank all the people and organisations that made the TIMES Semi Final in Lisbon the great success that it was. Starting with our main partners: José de Mello Saúde (a high quality healthcare company in Portugal), Twingle (a Portuguese auctions website) and Taguspark – Parque de Ciência e Tecnologia (a Portuguese science and technology park).

INSIdE EStIEM

18

how does

CRM really work?

What a place! What an event! I spent one week in Istanbul, where an ESTIEM event called Vision was organized. It was the best event of such academic quality and mini-break I have ever been to.

SoNjA MArtINov

The best things about Istanbul are the following: it connects Europe and Asia, is a mixture of cultures, and the sightseeing is simply magnificent. My first contact with Istanbul was the famous Bosphorus Bridge. Its stunning architecture just took my breath away. But the people there… They say that the people are the ones who make a place the way it is. So, according to that, the place where is simply perfect. I had never felt that kind of hospitality anywhere in Europe. They had answers for every question, a solution for every problem and most importantly, they were open for every kind of friendship.

Let’s talk about the organisation first. From the beginning until the end of the event absolutely nothing was missing, nothing went wrong, everything was according to schedule and we always had someone from the organising team by our side to take care of us. I thought that it couldn’t get better.

But it did. The program they had planned for us reached all of my expectations and even more.

The reason why I applied for this Vision was that I wanted to learn something new, something that helps me in future and that I can implement one day in my future company. The main topic of this Vision was CRM (Customer Relationship Management). I have to be honest and say that I didn’t know that much about it. But because every aspect of CRM was covered during the event, I learned a lot. From simple lectures to practical examples and group work, we had it all. We even saw how CRM worked in real life by visiting two companies: Vodafone and a big European “Call Center”, Global bilgi.

The lectures were organized in a way that we could learn how CRM functions in different companies. This was very important since we got to learn that CRM has to be flexible because customers in different markets are not the same. But for every way of dealing with CRM one thing is the same: it is a strategy used to learn more about customers’ needs and behaviour in order to develop stronger relationships with them. I also learned that there are 3 factors contributing to CRM success: it is 20% technology, 30% process and 50% human. This means that even if you have the most modern technology it does not guarantee your success if you don’t have employees that are wellinformed and qualified From all the lectures we had I have to emphasize some lectures that were very interesting to me and where I learned a lot. Firstly, I’d like to mention the lecture by Diego Lunardi from a company called Maximizer. Because we previously learned that technology is one of the success factors, he presented us CRM systems that are implemented in simple mobile phones. That was very interesting because most of the companies are used to accessing their CRM systems on different kinds of computers. Mr. Diego Lunardi presented us the advantages of using CRM on mobiles, such as easiness, effectiveness and reliability.

The second lecture I have to bring up is the presentation of Mr. Barış Taptık. Mr. Bariş Taptık works at Microsoft Turkey where he is CRM Product Manager. The presentation was very interesting because he showed us how some CRM programs really work. With very detailed explanations he gave us some useful information about CRM programs.

But to be honest, another thing that the participants will never forget is the non-academic part. Each night of the event was different. Every

19

time we learned something new, met someone new and had remarkable time together. We visited famous Turkish landmarks like the Blue Mosque, Saint Sophia, Topkapi Palace, Grand Bazaar and the Basilica cistern, also known as Yerebatan Sarnici.

In my opinion, the Bosphorus tour was one of the best parts in the whole event. The magnificent views from each side of the coast and the harmony on the boat were unforgettable. Even today I still remember the words of one Turkish song that we sang, and it goes something like this: Ah be kard-

INSIdE EStIEM

isam, besina ne geldi. We also learned a lot about Turkish culture. We ate some Turkish specialties, we drank raki, the famous Turkish national drink, and we danced in the Turkish way.

To sum up, with all of Istanbul’s attractions that we saw, it would be nothing if we didn’t have such an amazing organising team. In the end, I will say this again. It’s the people who make the place and the organisers certainly made me feel very welcome. 

EStIEM Alumni

RoundTable Brussels

On November 20th, the students of Brussels commemorate the founding of the University in Brussels by Pierre-Théodore Verhaegen in 1838.

Although never canonized, students celebrate the inspirational man with a day of party in his honour; St. V! and what a party it was!

Coinciding with the ESTIEM Brussels Activity Week, the first Alumni joined the students in a tremendous welcome party, reliving the party spirit of

yesteryear. On Friday the Alumni met up with the ESTIEMers and roughly all other students in town, at a big square downtown Brussels. Each student organisation had chartered a big truck serving as bar and disco in one, and loudly celebrating we made our way down the city.

The official theme of St. V this year was the 100 year memorial of the untimely and violent death of the great Spanish humanist, anarchist and

rAMoN PIjSt

The benefits of ESTIEM are plentiful : contacts with international companies, European friendships, experiencing cross-border teamwork on challenging assignments or cultural and social events. During student times you pick up skills that prove useful in future professional careers, once you join the ranks of ESTIEM Alumni. As an Alumnus you will (hopefully) find yourself in numerous situations where you can use and improve your skills. The unique European culture and ESTIEM spirit will always draw Alumni back to ESTIEM!

INSIdE EStIEM

20

school reformer Francisco Ferrer. It must be said, to find a connection between the parade and Ferrer is stretching at least, but it did show us an interesting aspect of the Belgian student life that may have been hidden from us otherwise…

Skipping breakfast was the right choice considering that we found ourselves having pizza for lunch in the beautiful old city of Brugges and a nice cultural afternoon in the historic streets and slightly over-touristic boats of the medieval Hanseatic city. In the evening we finally came to the name

giving RoundTable, where Olivier Zimmer worked miracles in his own kitchen and prepared a feast for about 25 people. The food had to be eaten with hands and it provided just the right atmosphere to hear all the latest stories from Alumni friends, meet some new friends, and probably establish some new stories.

Olivier, LG Brussels, all the Alumni: thanks for a remarkable weekend!

CM ZuRICh GABrIELLE LodS

I discovered ESTIEM when Nina Werner, Local Responsible of Zürich, convinced me to join the Council Meeting Famagusta to present Zürich as a candidate for the autumn Council Meeting 2009.

There I got familiar with the ESTIEM spirit. We thought that organising a Council Meeting would be just so much fun, applied for it and won. Coming back to Switzerland, I soon realised the challenges you face when organising an event in an expensive place: no possibility to have a hostel or to feed the participants in restaurants, and diff iculties with the expensive Zürich nightlife. Fortunately, Hélène Carrard helped me from the very beginning.

In February, I started to recruit a team: they were the people who made this Council Meeting possible. We were around 10, spread between different sections. With hard work, we managed to secure the bunkers for sleeping (it took 3 months to find them), arrange the meals, organise the evenings and sketch a plan of the logistics constraints .

After the summer, we recruited additional team members from the new students and entered the last phase of the preparation, having everything but the rooms and some sponsors. Needless

21

to say that we were a bit stressed! Fortunately, the ETH Zürich gave us access to an auditorium during the time needed and Arkwright decided to sponsor the CM. Two weeks before, we started to recruit staff for the event and design the “planning”: the collection of what had to be done, by whom, where, and so on. Some of us literally spent nights on this but it proved to be extremely useful.

We got access to the « sleeping bunker » on the Friday before the Council Meeting. That was when the serious stuff started. First, the big planning meeting took place. Then we made the welcome packages, as well as the nametags, and started to organise the bunker life. Monday was one of the roughest days. Even though the event did not start then, a fair number of participants already arrived.

After a carefully planned route, the guys brought back more than 2 tons of food, drinks and other things to the bunkers, as it was the only possible day to get them. We started to feel tired already.

On Tuesday, it started for real. The registration took place rather smoothly, as well as the Junior Training. Things got crazy when I wanted to show the university to the juniors (60 people) but 180 participants came. Beware; walking that many people around without a megaphone is quite a task!

After some complaints from the president of our CM zurICh - CoMMENtS Nic van Kooten (Eindhoven)

“CM Zurich was ESTIEM in a nutshell: serious business alternated with extreme fun, together with active, same-oriented and inspiring people in an environment of ‘work hard, play hard’! This CM definitely made a new step towards a better ESTIEM and is a ‘must-havebeen-to’!”

university, we managed to get everyone back to the bunkers. Once the participants left to the first party, we had a visit from a security guy: the parking door was not supposed to stay open more than 10 seconds or we would get fined. After managing that, I finally made it to the « party bunker » to see how things were going - only to find that the police had just arrived to complain about the noise. The organising team tried to explain to the participants the behaviour rules in a quiet area in Switzerland with a moderate success.

The following days went by on schedule for most of the time. Usually during a Council Meeting, you see people getting more tired every day. In Zürich, we had the surprise to see more and people passing by, wearing suits at 6.45 a.m.! Incredible!

We had unbelievable time organising this event.

We all lost some weight, slept two hours per night for 10 days but the feedback received and the financial outcomes were amazing. We learnt so much and are thankful for the crazy opportunity to organise this.

I would like to thank my team: Achim Wöllner, Hélène Carrard, Phoebe Härtner, Gizem Arici, Benoît Demaurex, Giacomo Cattaneo, Carl Lindberg, Vivudh Bhatia, Afet Musliji, Stéphanie Nguyen and Yuting Chen and all the staff and people who helped us making the CM Zürich amazing

And I cannot forget my awesome family...” Who are we?

DESTINY!!!”

Fatma Ece Er (Ankara- MEtu)

200 ESTIEMers, beautiful (and really expensive city), lots of work and crazy bunker parties...

If somebody had told me before that I was going to sleep in a bunker in winter in Switzerland before, I would precisely say “No way!”. CM Zurich was a proof of how much I loved ESTIEM. It was an amazing experience by means of meeting all those great people, the general assemblies from which I learned a lot and the neat city Zurich.

Could it be better? Oh, yes! In Council Meeting Zurich, Local Group Zagreb became ESTIEM active observer!

P.S: Bunker style partying was sooooo fun, every ESTIEMer should see it!

Iva Condric (zagreb)

INSIdE EStIEM

INSIdE EStIEM

22

And now, which event could we organise?

vICtorIA MArtINEz

This was the tricky question we asked last April during the Council Meeting Grenoble. LG Sevilla, a little Local Group with new very motivated members but not knowing where to start from, had also several problems to face: we didn’t have any sponsors and summer was in the middle, which means a lack of communication between members and no possibility to find ways for economic support.

July came and also a new Local Board. After reading about all the possible events to organise, a Regional Coordination Meeting (ReCoM) seemed to be the best opportunity to get new members from our university, and to make our Local Group more stable in ESTIEM itself.

First step taken, we already had an event to organise. After several meetings with the university, they finally gave us financial support good enough to organise almost all the activities we wanted to do. Xavier Schibi, helped by the whole Local Group, took charge of this ReCoM and so it all started...

After spending several days sending thousands of emails, making phone calls and having meetings with the university, this Regional Coordination Meeting in Seville started at the end of November.

We were worried about the organisation, not because we weren’t sure about us, but because the final opinion of ESTIEMers in the end of the event was crucial to motivate people and to help us continue.

topics and universities as well as enjoyed delicious Spanish food with sangria. All this along the activities Xavier Schibi had organised during the event: cruise on the river, horse fair, city tour, flamenco show... Personally, I think that the results were bigger than expected.

We didn’t have time to rest between activities and meetings but tiredness didn’t seem to be with us at all. Full days at the university with meetings and promotion of ESTIEM by Luis Godinho, followed by city tours or different activities in the city, a fast shower - and it was time to discover the nightlife of Sevilla and tasty dinner again.

For Local Group Seville these 5 days full of fun and knowledge were the chance to know better how to work together and to find our weaknesses and strengths, because we had two more events during the following weeks. This event also helped us to motivate students to join ESTIEM and to activate our ESTIEMers. And of course, show to other ESTIEMers how Sevilla and our Local Group are! In the end of the event, the opinions of ESTIEMers, as well as ours, were very positive. That made us continue organising events and grow as a Local Group.

Thanks to all ESTIEMers who came, we hope to see you soon in Europe and also in our next events!

Also thanks to Local Group Seville because they worked hard and the result was awesome. A special thank to Escuela Superior de Ingenieros for their trust in us! 

First ESTIEMers arrived and we were enthusiastic to welcome them. We shared experiences about different cultures, discussed ESTIEM

reCoM Seville

training the new... what?

23

INSIdE EStIEM

Trainers?

The idea of an ESTIEM training structure occurred some years ago and in January 2010 the time had come to encourage the first group of motivated ESTIEMers to enter the role of a trainer. Trainings can be described as a way to teach and evolve new and prior knowledge, skills and experiences through interactive methods. The topics can be totally new knowledge or well known areas seen from new perspectives that provide insights and put skills and knowledge into useful competences.

After some weeks of preparation and homework twelve ESTIEMers, two pharmaceutical students from EPSA, three trainers and the local organizing group finally met in Eindhoven on the 5th of January. After a welcoming evening with nice dinner and mingling the first working day started with a task for the participants to draw their ideal trainer. There was a total silence in the room as the participants were not allowed to use any oral or written communication during the task, instead flipcharts, markers and body language had to do the job. This task somehow symbolised the whole event containing expectations of trainer skills to learn as well as using challenging ways to communicate and work together.

The work continued with theory and practice in creating and facilitating a training session. These skills occurred very useful when the trainees’ big challenge, to plan and deliver their very own training event and session, was presented. As the hours of work passed by, some groups received constructive and uplifting outcomes while others struggled with more problems which made despair and irritation occur. When the university closed at 10:30pm,

the majority of trainees still had some work to do in order to reach satisfactory outcomes and action plans for the training delivery next day...

The following morning started with more theory, exercises and discussions related to accomplishment of rewarding training sessions. However, the most challenging and exciting task were still the trainees’ own trainings, presented after many hours of work including preparation homework, many hours of work the day before and some hectic last minutes preparations. After each group’s 30 minutes of training delivery and following

feedback, we had altogether accomplished the first ESTIEM New Training Event. Tired, happy and satisfied we enjoyed a long well deserved evening at Strautmseind, in the heart of Eindhoven.

After this successful event we, the Knowledge Management Committee, the coordination team and the newly trained participants, now ESTIEM trainers, are eager to see the next bigger TNT set into practice. In Ankara the 1-6th of October we plan to give 20-25 participants the chance to develop themselves through inspiring, rewarding trainings and circumstances and to become highly skilled and experienced trainers. So, help us accomplish the mission of “not reinventing the wheel” by attending or supporting the upcoming TNT, you will never regret it! 

KAtjA oLoFSSoN

“Oh, I remember, 2010 was an amazing year...I did attend ESTIEM Training New Trainers event, the event where the legendary training structure was founded...”

Shouldn’t that be the best proof of appreciation for an event if we can hear people talking about it in such a way after a few years?! Until that day, let me tell you what happened in January 2010.

INSIdE EStIEM

24

Summer Academy Romania – my personal experience PhILIPP ELLEtt

Does spending two weeks of your summer holidays, working hard in the middle of the Romanian Car pathians together with a professor from Cambridge and a bunch of ESTIEMers from all over Europe sound interesting to you? Then continue reading and join me, to explore what might be ESTIEM´s Holy Grail!

What is the sense of life? What is the sense of my life? What is the sense of an engineer´s life?

What is the issue of leadership? Summer Academy is all about of these things. It is an intensive seminar about deep understanding of your decisions, about your self-conception as an engineer, but also as a human. A project that is often described as the most ambitious within ESTIEM. But now let´s start my Summer Academy story from the beginning! Some time ago, a friend of mine whom I often go cycling with told me about his last summer holiday and the ESTIEM event he had been to; A lecture. In the countryside. With a university professor. Working from sunrise to late night. Not exactly what I considered a brilliant recreation of my exhausting student life. My ignorance didn´t bother him anyway, and he kept on telling me about his great experience, about the things he had learned, about this remarkable professor and the friends he had made for life. He was talking about Summer Academy with such great fascination and respect, that from there on I had a big goal on my ESTIEM schedule.

So there we were: August 2009, in the middle of nowhere in Romania, a house surrounded by a magnificent landscape, 14 ESTIEMers and

Jim Platts, our mentor. After the first day which was full of lectures, group discussion and long sessions of mostly silent reflection, I thought that this two weeks were never going to end. At some point though, it „clicked“in my head; I experienced that studying, or – learning, isn’t just a burden that one is ought to shoulder. Learning, or – development - isn´t anything static; it is a path of looking inwards to yourself, a path of cognition and personal growth - and it is fun! My imagination was shifted, I was amazed how supremely we could work as a team and solve both tasks and controversy. I very much enjoyed writing my thesis and all the support I got for it from Jim and the inspiring discussions with the others. The team spirit that quickly emerged from our group as well as the whole atmosphere at this very special event lead each of us to a level of performance that I personally had never experienced for myself before. And even now, a while after Summer Academy, it is still amazing to see how perfectly we understand each other at a random group work occasion within ESTIEM. Looking backwards, I would confidently say that Summer Academy has changed my perspective, and yes, it has to some extent changed my life!

I would like to thank the entire Local Group Bucharest for the great personal commitment everybody made to organise this event for us. I would also like to thank you, Jim, for enabling our and entire ESTIEM´s growth with Summer Academy for the last 10 years. 

From previous

25

Project Leaders

Dana Nastase Europe3D 1. Why did you decide to become a Project Leader?

I guess that it was nothing but the Project itself! The foundation must have been the fact that I was so passionate about Europe3D and its potential. And, frankly, what also counted was that I had no idea what I was exactly getting myself into!

2. “Oh, damn. Why did I become a Project Leader?”

Your worst experience, please.

I think that during my Project leadership year the worst was when in a Europe3D event, half of the people got sick and almost a third of them were lying in hospital beds! I’m looking forward to the day when this memory will become amusing and not give me shivers any more…

3. “Great, I became the Project Leader!” What was your best experience during your term?

The most rewarding moments were when I could introduce Europe3D to other people. The feeling is unique! Their interest, their appreciation and my certainty that Europe3D will impress them as soon as I start describing it…these moments were always overwhelming! One good example would be the Europe3D presentation from the ceremony of the European Charlemagne Youth Prize in Aachen.

4. What did you gain from being a Project Leader and what did you add to your Project?

Apart from all practical knowledge about how to run a Project responsibly and efficiently, I gained a lot of trust in myself and my team. I learnt how differently people think or react and how to treat life related issues through a broad, flexible perspective. I tested and challenged my limits. Most important of all, I experienced what “passionately working on what you like” means. Regarding my contribution to the Project itself, I guess that I specifically added the huge emotional load! It was strongly emotional for me and I think that this

transpired a lot at most of the work levels.

5. What was your favorite activity or unforgettable experience in ESTIEM?

12am, 6th of May 2006, Europe3D Dresden when on the stairs of the Brühl Terrace next to the shores of Elbe 30 people were singing for my 21st birthday in seven different languages.

Unforgettable!

6. Anyone you want to thank for their support during your time as Project Leader?

The Europe3D team who worked hard during the year, the organisers of Europe3D events and all the participants and applicants for the Europe3D events deserve a huge “Thank You”! I also thank the ESTIEM Board, Sebastian Katzung as my Board responsible and all the Projects and Committees bringing in support when needed. Further thanks to Aydin Dikici, Nina Werner and Jan Knutzen giving me the feeling that they were there if I ever needed advice or would screw up. And, of course, Olivier Zimmer and Katrin Kraemer for believing so much in this Project!

Markus Divjak Vision of Responsibility 1. Why did you decide to become a Project Leader?

I became a Project Leader because I wanted to give something back to this fantastic organisation, which gave so much to me.

2. “Oh, damn. Why did I become a Project Leader?”

Your worst experience, please.

One event during “my” Vision Series had to be cancelled due to a lack of participants and I am still wondering if I could have done anything different to prevent this situation from occurring.

3.“Great, I became the Project Leader!” What was your best experience during your term?

Having a good friend of mine telling me that I did a good job and that he and lots of others appreciate me for that. Nothing is more motivating

INSIdE EStIEM

INSIdE EStIEM

26

than that.

residence...

4. What did you gain from being a Project Leader and what did you add to your Project?

4. “Great, I became the Project Leader!” What was your best experience during your term?

I gained lots of fun, the experience of working in international teams and I expanded my horizon on organisational work. For what I added: I believe I helped to develop Vision and put the whole Project on a more professional basis, but that remains to be determined by other people.

...but spending one week in an excellent atmosphere with friends, 1500 km from home, is simply priceless.

5. Define your Project with a colour and a fruit.

Colour: Orange, since that actually is the colour of the project Fruit: Orange...the explanation is obvious, right?

5. What did you gain from being a Project Leader and what did you add to your Project?

I gained experience of project management... well, more of that “what not to do when you are a Project Leader” type of knowledge. As for what I added to the project, I tried to add team-spirit and continuity, as well as something still to be seen... just keep an eye on Summer Academy!

6. Define your Project with a colour and a fruit.

6. What was your favourite activity or unforgettable experience in ESTIEM?

Every Council Meeting is great in lots of ways, so those are my favourite activities. The most unforgettable experience was to get my “Letter of Appreciation” in front of everyone. For me, that was a really emotional moment.

7. Anyone you want to thank for their support during your time as Project Leader?

There are a lot of people who helped me during that time, and if I would try to name all, I would surely forget some. But if I’m forced to name only one, I would say Sebastian Katzung, my predecessor and Vice President of Activities 2009.  Miroslav Ferencak Summer Academy 1. Why did you decide to become a Project Leader?

The decision was simple: After my first Summer Academy in Hungary I simply knew that Summer Academy is the ESTIEM project where I can contribute the most hence I applied for Project Leadership on Council Meeting in Famagusta in 2008.

3. “Oh, damn. Why did I become a Project Leader?”

Your worst experience, please.

Sometimes it’s really hard to be the sole organiser of event more than 1500 km away from your

Strawberry would fit best, because every cream (and Summer Academy is the “crème de la crème” Project) needs one. Purple is the colour of high academic officials in some cultures, and also one of the royal colours, so I would choose that one to describe the Summer Academy. Not to mention that one female Project Leader likes purple T-shirts on boys...

7. What was your favourite activity or unforgettable experience in ESTIEM?

Even if singing “I met a girl the other day” and “Big Fat Pony” - both with adequate choreography and trying to absorb as much of the ESTIEM spirit as possible are great, the feeling of excitement that you have when you pick up the first ESTIEMer who arrived at an event your Local Group is organising beats them all.

8. Is there anyone you want to thank for their support during your time as Project Leader?

Some people really deserve to be mentioned here. Without the full engagement of ESTIEMers from Local Groups Bucharest and Lisbon, the extremely positive feedback from participants wouldn’t be possible. Also, the fresh ideas and enthusiasm from Alex Baranga, Victor Vladareanu and Joao Barata kept me going on. I must also mention Tobias Hemmerlein, for the support and patience he had for me.

27

INSIdE EStIEM

What’s happening in...

Cambridge?

UK manufacturing has suffered decline for several years now, with examples being the increasingly fragile state of Corus steelworks and the recent acquisition of Cadbury by Kraft foods.

The UK government is beginning to realise that the UK’s manufacturing industry may soon become a distant memory, with Rolls Royce the last remaining UK-based large scale manufacturer with a global reputation of excellence. Cambridge provides the vision required to prevent this decline from occurring, recognising both the value of manufacturing and the instability of the financial services sector upon which our economy has begun to rely on so heavily. Silicon Fen is the name given to the region around Cambridge which is home to a large cluster of high-tech businesses, especially related to software, electronics and biotechnology. Many of these have connections with the University of Cambridge and the area is now one of the most important technology centres in Europe. If you attended a Vision or the New Academic Event scheduled for Cambridge, you would find that our research is exciting and at the frontier of science and technology. The dedication and enthusiasm of our academic staff shines through and your learning experience would be second to none.

The issue lies in developing small, high-tech firms into sustainable businesses with a strategy for continued growth. What has been missing from the UK is a clear method to further these businesses. The Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), Cambridge, aims to address some of these problems and Local Group Cambridge is comprised of the undergraduate body of the IfM. The course prepares students to be leaders of business and technology enterprises. From my experience, I have found that the UK has a lot to learn from the rest of Europe when it comes to manufacturing. For example, the strategic steps taken by the German government have allowed for Germany to dominate the solar industry and maintain manufacturing as a major contributor to its economy. Another example is the Zara business model from Spain, regarded in the UK to be best practice when it comes to managing the supply chain and short lead times of variable batch production. Conversely, Cambridge has spawned new technologies of great significance, from the inkjet printers of Domino Printing Sciences to the recent polymer transistors of Plastic Logic. Any cause, it seems, which seeks to strengthen our ties with the rest of Europe is both worthwhile and necessary.

What better place to develop this at a student level than ESTIEM?

xIoNG ChANG

Once again, it’s raining outside and Cambridge is bleak, expensive and vitamin D deficient. This paints a picture generally regarded as being far from the European student ideal. Together with the recent dormancy of Cambridge activity within ESTIEM, one may wonder if the votes against our exclusion in Zürich were made in haste, blinded by our prestige as an institution and without measure of our contributions. So what do Cambridge and ESTIEM have to offer each other? We’ll start by what’s happening in Cambridge...

28

EStIEM ANNIvErSAry ESTIEM – Spirituality

ChrIStoPh hAGEdorN

The ESTIEM Spirit is mentioned frequently when people try to explain what is so special about this gathering of students and well, in the meantime also ‘elder’ people.

But where did this Spirit come from, how was it created and when experienced for the first time?

Please join me in investigating ESTIEM history.

According to Wikipedia, a Spirit could also be called a Type of Being, a Supernatural Entity or Energy.

And Supernatural is actually a good hint to start with. In November of 1989 we had the first one of a series of meetings that led to the foundation of ESTIEM. This one was in Darmstadt, and we were some innocent German students trying to bring something international into our university live.

Three days before the meeting our international efforts had been as successful as convincing our Austrian IEM colleagues to join the party.

But then the Finns arrived. With no heads-up or warning there stood 2 Finnish students from Helsinki in our middle. One large as a tree, the other one sturdier. Both dressed in their white Prodeko combat overall. One said Hi, and then nothing more, the other one stood up and over the course of the next 2 days explained to us what internationality truly means. At that time we were sure that we had a close encounter of the Third Kind. Today, after passing the ESTIEM cross-culture seminar, we know that the two were just a decent snapshot of Finnish reality.

The Finns told us about IEMs in Linkoping, Sweden where in April, 1990, the local IEM study would have its 20th anniversary. That sounded like a great opportunity for our international idea (and like a big party). They got us an invitation and so we extended our experience to Swedes.

In Linkoping we looked at each other and felt so strong and lucky because for the first time we experienced that unbelievable Energy that is present when people sharing a cultural curiosity and the desire to act come together and the only hurdle between them is to get themselves start talking.

We parted with a lot of impressions, a rough throat and the commitment to gather more IEM’s and meet again in only 3 months in Graz, Austria, where the national IEM association would have its bi-annual congress.

Graz, an old city in the South of Austria, was the crying opposite to the student wilderness we had just experienced. Lectures and keynote speeches, formal reception by the local Governor in his palace, a wine tasting tour… you get the picture.

But in order to get the full picture, you need to know, that by now we were about 30 students from Finland, Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany and certainly Austria. The curiosity and let’s-do-it mentality was present everywhere we met. And the very stylish frame created by our Austrian friends gave the last confirmation that we were participating in something really special.

It was in Graz where that Energy gave us the impression that everything is possible. And in our discussion we started to create something that could be called a Type of Being. We started to refer to it as an association: we began to look for a name and a set of rules (damn rules, must have been the Germans who came up with that thought). Students of IEM we were, we structured the work ahead, formed working teams and decided to meet again in November in Berlin.

The next month was filled with work. One day in late summer we met in Aachen and on our agenda was the topic to find a name for our ‘Being’. We

29

received advice to use a creative method of which I have forgotten the intellectual sounding name. In the end we all had a piece of paper in our hands with several possible names, but we didn’t like any of them On one paper stood IEMA and on one Esteem (grammatically correct). It took all our braveness and Astrid’s (Astrid Dings) bullhead to marry these two and come up with ESTIEM. And so the Being got a name. Thank you, Astrid.

Then we all met again in Berlin. In November 1990, Berlin by itself was a great place to be, with all the German reunification going on.

t h e fo u n d ing students at tu Berlin, Nov 23, 1990

But we, now about 50 students from 14 student groups and 7 countries were all focused on our foundation meeting. We had a name (actually we went in with 2, but only the Austrians voted for the other one). We had a text that we called the statutes and that represented all the efforts we went through the months before and that were very proud of. But we didn’t have the Irish from Galway in our equation.

In Berlin they joined us for the first time. And while the rest of us where non-native English speakers and quite happy with our statutes text, they found a grammatical incorrectness there and a possible misunderstanding here. Well, it was all for the greater good and a few hours later we reached an agreement that would pass the Oxford dictionary. If it wasn’t for the ESTIEM song, which the guys from Galway later contributed to ESTIEM, we might have kicked them out again right there.

And finally, we voted for the first Board, which completed the transfiguration process and completed the creation of our association, ESTIEM. All this had happened in just 12 unbelievable months. Looking back it feels like a version of ‘students in wonderland’. How was it possible to meet so many fantastic people in such a short period of time, agree with them on a crazy idea and start putting it into reality?

My take on this is that this Energy exists naturally. All that is necessary to explore it, is a little bit of luck that two groups which share the same curiosity and the desire to do something come together. Then talking and doing creates that spark which since Graz has ignited every ESTIEM event and become known as the ESTIEM Spirit.

Climb, climb on Sunshine Mountains … I just love it.

Looking forward to our anniversary party, Yours, Christoph 

EStIEM ANNIvErSAry

1st EStIEM Board meeting in opern Café, Berlin

EStIEM ANNIvErSAry

30

Make it an anniversary to remember!

ESTIEM is about to turn 20 years old, so how about we let it show?

The anniversary year means a big celebration across Europe and throughout the year.

This is your invitation to join in for the fun.

Dear ESTIEMer,

ANttI MAttILA

As you probably already know, our beloved association will turn 20 years old during the calendar year of 2010. Reaching this age is never easy, and just as for any other 20-year old, for ESTIEM the anniversary year is a big celebration. Throughout the year, we will respect the long history of ESTIEM in several ways. Starting from the founding year of 1990 and going through the whole history, we will show what we have learned during these 20 magnificent years.

is happy to invite all ESTIEM Alumni to celebrate ESTIEM’s 20-year long history with us.

Just like every 20-year old, ESTIEM knows how to have fun. This is also where it all started, people with the same ambition to connect the IEM-students of Europe to have fun and do things together. Now, 20 years later, this is something we still know how to do, so naturally one part of celebrating the year will be through our anniversary events. The anniversary theme will be present in many events throughout the year, but the biggest celebrations will happen during the XL Council Meeting in Porto, the OlympiXX anniversary event in Karlsruhe, and the anniversary Council Meeting in Finland.

Regardless of being more mature than before, during its anniversary year ESTIEM wants to support new ideas ever more. During last year, we already saw many new concepts born, such as ESTIEM Academic Days, BrainTrainer and ESTIEM Theatre play. This illustrates well the fact that ESTIEM is a playground for every one of us to try out new ideas.

Something that a 20-year old should also know already is to appreciate the older generations.

Therefore, we have decided to give the ESTIEM Alumni an excellent opportunity to celebrate the anniversary year together with us, the current generation of ESTIEM. A perfect chance for this will be at the grand finale of the year, in Council Meeting Finland. Organised together with all five Finnish Local Groups, the Council Meeting Finland

Apart from having fun, ESTIEM has also become more mature. During the years before turning 20, ESTIEM has seen many great new initiatives. These ideas have increased the professional image of the whole association and thus, made ESTIEM more complete, now being able to provide something for everyone’s needs.

Therefore, if you have a new idea and you think it would be fun to try it out, please speak up. I would especially like to encourage you to come up with new ways to celebrate the 20th anniversary and to share them with us. Remember, impossible is nothing!

Just like every 20-year old, ESTIEM is also thinking about moving away from home and investing in a place to live in during the next years.

Stay tuned for more information about the ESTIEM cottage. 

31

EStIEM’s

EStIEM ANNIvErSAry

20th Anniversary Council Meeting, Finland 2010

Local Group Finland

The 20th anniversary Council Meeting is organised by the so-called Local Group Finland. In Council Meeting Zürich, all five Finnish Local Groups decided to take on this challenge and build something incredible together. Now we are working across distances of up to 680 km, in search of the freshest ideas, all to create an unforgettable Anniversary event.

Not only are we getting back to ESTIEM’s roots with Council Meeting Finland (Finland being one of the founding countries of ESTIEM), this event also embodies ESTIEM spirit. Working together across geographic and cultural boundaries, we intend to make this a tremendous experience for everyone involved!

Council Meeting Finland

In November 2010, ESTIEM finally turns 20, and we will celebrate it with style in the forests of Finland. This Council Meeting is not held in a big city, and we won’t be surrounded by beautiful mountains or beaches. There will be only darkness, blackness and misery, as one of our Boardies descriptively stated. To beat that, Council Meeting Finland can offer inspiring participants of over 20 different nationalities, pristine nature, unique facilities and some very strange Finnish traditions!

IEM students will not be alone in welcoming you to Finland. With the Finnish Minister of Finance officially supporting the event, we have attracted the likes of Risto Siilasmaa (Nokia board) and Jorma Eloranta (Metso, CEO) to come greet us. Both of them are also IEM alumni. Who’s next?

20 years of ESTIEMers

What could make this anniversary event more fitting than a wide range of ESTIEMers from all these 20 years? Nothing, and that is why we have decided to invite up to 100 IEM alumni to join the new generation of ESTIEMers! Not only is this a great opportunity to learn from the wise and experienced, this is also a chance to meet new amazing people!

Invitation!

Ladies and gentlemen, ESTIEMers and past ESTIEMers: Join us and be part of the legendary ESTIEM 20th anniversary Council Meeting Finland 2010!

Hellurei!

on behalf of the whole organising team, tero jaakkola Project Leader LG Finland tero.jaakkola@estiem.org http://cmfinland.estiem.org Please join our Facebook group “Council Meeting Finland 2010”

tEro jAAKKoLA

ESTIEM is turning 20 in 2010, and we definitely have the events to match! First off, we have the XL Council Meeting in sunny Porto. Next, we have the OlympiXX Anniversary event and the Anniversary Theatre play.

Last, but most certainly not least, we have THE 20th anniversary Council Meeting in Finland!

EStIEM ANNIvErSAry

32

olympixx So much for everyone to discover and be a part of!

SEBAStIAN KooB

This is the year of ESTIEM’s 20th anniversary and we, too, want to show as many people as possible how great this organisation really is. If you think that a legendary tram party is all we can do to make this week memorable, read on and let me convince you that there is so much more for every one of you to discover and be part of. Among all the other group activities, there is also a charity run supporting international projects .

Do you think that the original founders of ESTIEM could ever imagine how greatly their idea of a student organisation would work out?

Numerous developments have been made in the years when people from all over Europe have worked together to create this unique network of highly motivated students. In order to celebrate the great achievements based on the work and input of so many people from culturally diverse backgrounds, we as the Local Group Karlsruhe have decided to organise an event that reflects those ideals we all believe in.

It is our vision to bring together people from all parts of Europe to create a truly international atmosphere based on empathy and understanding.

Together with all our guests, we will have different sports competitions, which don’t only focus on high performance, but also aim at teambuilding and having great time together. It is important to emphasise that there will be enough time for relaxation and enjoying the sun. This relaxed atmosphere is going to help everyone make friends easily.

There will also be a couple of things that are done for the first time in ESTIEM history. One of them is the very first ESTIEM theatre play, which will premiere at the gala dinner. Another interesting development is the charity run. It will create an opportunity to support the campaign „Karlsruhe - City for Children 2010“, which advances interna-

tional UNICEF projects for children in Burundi, Niger and Haiti. In our opinion, it is a long overdue step to take on our social responsibility and support those in need. In order to be able to really make a difference, we have assured the support of many highly reputed people from various parts of society. The success of our ambitious plans also depends on your participation and will, as a side effect, increase awareness and improve the image of ESTIEM. The accommodation will be on the campus.

Thus the distances to both the centre of the city and the places for all the activities are very short.

Furthermore, it will create a camp spirit and benefit getting to know as many people as possible.

Apart from the daytime activities, we have arranged some very special things to do after dark.

One of the highlights is a pool-party, which will surely offer the perfect circumstances for relaxing after a long day of activities. Moreover, we will have a tram-party. For those of you that have never been to such an extraordinary journey through the city of Karlsruhe, I can promise an incredibly exciting ride with lots of great people. To conclude our gathering in an appropriate fashion, we will have a gala dinner in one of the historic buildings in the centre of the beautiful town of Karlsruhe.

In case you have any further questions or want to find out more about this event, feel free to contact any of the project leaders, Mathias Gumbrich, Oemer Kuzugueden or me. If not, just apply now on the ESTIEM Portal and tell all your friends to do so as well. We are looking forward to welcoming you all. 

Contact: OlympiXX@estiem.org

33 FoCuS

Cities

and Sustainable Growth

Saudi Arabia - deep in the heart of the world’s petroleum business - aims to restructure its economic dependence on oil exports by exploiting opportunities in markets never tapped into before.

They aim to develop Qatar’s Energy City into the next Silicon Valley to generate growth potential in the renewable energy sector. New Songdo City, Korea, is an “instant” international city with a New York scale. This state-of-the-art model of sustainable design aims to emit less than half of the greenhouse gases of cities of the same size.

The trends in urban development have encouraged the creation of new cities rather than the redevelopment of old ones. These new, or ‘instant cities’, utilise the state-of-the-art clean technologies, including solar energy, bio-fuels, smart grids, and battery back-ups. This phenomenon aims to address the development of a sustainable future with cleaner production and the utilisation of the highest efficiency science can offer.

But technology alone is not enough to create a prosperous future. Adapting to the challenges of sustainable growth will require a new approach at multiple stages of resource extraction, production, consumption and disposal.The question is if ‘instant cities’ balance between growth-enhancing measures and if the protection of social inclusion is an essential component for sustainable development. People must be able to learn, use, adapt and innovate the technology to integrate it. Citizen participation is difficult in centrally planned com-

munities. Further debate includes the concerns over the class inequality of the smart-infrastructure business. These new developments have an exorbitantly high upfront capital cost and therefore prioritise owner-occupied housing and new apartments, preventing low-income people from entering into this territory.

Developers are attracted to new city development because implementing high-tech conservation and efficiency measures are only possible that way.

New cities have no legacy costs, no outdated technology, no infrastructure to repair, no toxicity to clean up and deferring infrastructure costs to the future. Changing old patterns of human settlements fail to be addressed with new towns, and people can move to another new town when the infrastructure becomes old and antiquated. Therefore the burden of cost gets shifted to someone else.

Indeed, the future must successfully integrate sustainable development as a core practice of operation. Will new city development cause the abandonment of older civilisations? Drastic changes in dwelling areas and migration of people could cause a sudden “boomtown” to “burst-town,” leaving only a ghost town and waste of the world’s last resources. As attractive as the instant cities may seem, perhaps restoration and renovation will still pose the greatest potential for long-term sustainable growth. 

Nancy J. Cole is a master’s student in Renewable Energy Management at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany.

NANCy j.CoLE

Nothing less than a new era of intelligent cities will be capable of responding to the growing demand for energy and resources. The combination of world getting richer, population’s increase and the pressures on natural resources threatens the long-term wellbeing of life on Earth. If growth is inevitable, then sustainability will be determined by the acceptance of technological innovations.

FoCuS

34

Some notes on the puzzle of

economic develo EhSAN EhSANI

Having seen the events such as the economic crisis of 2008, the challenge of access to energy and the shortage of resources such as water, many question if the model of economic development which we have been pursuing for the last 100 years is going to be functional in the next century.

The answer is: Probably not! Today, there are around 1 billion children growing up in our world and most of them come from families which are living under $1 per day income conditions; they are looking at the western world’s standards of life and want the same qualities in life. However, this demand can’t be met with the current paradigms of business and available resources and therefore, sooner or later, imbalances and tensions will surface.

The million dollar question is how we can overcome this issue? While we are not fully aware of the right solution, I believe there are three buckets or pieces of action which can be leveraged in order to create new sustainable ways of living and mitigate the risk of global imbalance. Below, these three pieces are presented briefly.

Change in behaviour

A significant part of energy and unsustainable demand today is derived by paradigm of thinking among people and in societies. This ranges from the modes of transportation we use, to the goods we buy and even the food we eat.

Taking the food as an example, today the percentage of people in developed world which use red meat significantly is very high. However, looking at the meat production chain from efficiency perspective, we notice that the amount of land and energy which is required to produce one kilogram of bio-mass (meat) is much higher compared to consuming agriculture-based foods. The

reason is that animals consume those agricultural products as their food and not all the food is converted into biomass.

Now think about a future scenario where people reduce the amount of red meat they consume by 20% and use the agricultural products directly instead. The amount of available and consumable agricultural-based food in this case will be much more and this food supply can be channelled towards the rising demand.

It should be kept in mind though that changing social norms and habits doesn’t happen overnight and requires significant education, social programs and encouraging policies by governments and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Technological Innovation

One might argue that change in behaviour might partially solve our issues for some years; however, the key piece of the puzzle is energy as there is tremendous energy consumption associated with agriculture and food transport. There is also a shortage of water as a resource, especially if the current trends in global warming continue.

The answer to such challenges might lead us to the second piece in the chain: Technological Innovation.

Looking back at the early days of Industrial revolution in the 18th century, it can be clearly seen how invention of new technologies such as stea m engine un-

35

opment and sustainability locked the puzzle of growth and provided a way to cope with the increasing demand. The challenge of today’s world however is not coping with the demand per se but a shortage of resources; the answer however might well be the same!

The resource landscape of today’s world has two parts: It is true that we are in shortage of resources such as water, oil and copper; however, we also have huge access to other resources such as land, sea water, aluminium, and air!

It is not for certain that the technology will go our desired way but it certainly has the potential to solve the resource availability issue. Today copper is being used in many of the electronics devices and equipments and through innovation we might be able to use aluminium instead and make the copper issue irrelevant; in the same fashion, sea water can be turned into normal drinkable water and the energy for doing this activity and many other energy consuming tasks might come from nuclear power.

Imagining such a world might be difficult today but it certainly was the same way for people living in 1900’s imaging internet, airplanes and submarines.

Government Policies

Although technology development and invention can play an important role in attacking the challenge of sustainability, most of the technologies today are developed

by for-profit organizations which don’t necessarily have the incentive to go the path for developing sustainable technologies.

That’s the reason government policies come into place as the third piece and can act like the glue which bond the other pieces together.

Governments can play a role in encouraging sustainability in two ways: One by providing the right environment for businesses to go for sustainable technological innovation and second by putting policies in place to shift people’s behaviour.

Governments can provide tax-incentives for companies which are developing new alternative energy solutions, create incubator zones where companies can collaborate with each other on new technologies and also invest in educational institutions which are working on these fields.

As mentioned earlier, governments can also play a role on people’s side. Encouraging sustainable ways of living, tax benefits and educational programs for people, can help accelerate rate of change to a new way of life.

Conclusion

It is clear that finding a solution for the puzzle of economic growth is not easy and certainly not limited to the three elements mentioned above.

However, we can be sure that if these three pieces work in harmony with each other, they can have tremendous impact on creating new sources of wealth, access to new resources for sustainable growth and provide opportunities to improve welfare for developing countries. 

FoCuS

FoCuS

36

FoC

A new perspective on an old contestation

MorItz WILKE

Moritz Wilke is the Task Group Leader Social and Environmental Responsibility of ESTIEM

Looking at the past 150 years, economic growth has always been related to an increased consumption of natural resources. Now that the end of some important resources, especially oil, is foreseeable, the idea of sustainable development becomes more and more popular.

By looking at this, it firstly has to be defined what sustainable development is. According to World Commission on Environment and Development (in the `Brundtland report), sustainable development is realised when current needs are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

This implies that natural resources which are needed to satisfy future consumption may either not be used today, or their efficiency must be increased which requires technological progress. Some even argue that ‘sustainable growth’ is a contradiction in terms and therefore cannot be reached.

Wherever scientific discussion goes, sustainability has become trendy, customers demand it and companies have to deal with it. From companies’ point of view this contradiction does not exist.

Companies can grow while being sustainable; some even grow because they are sustainable. While in the past it was enough to focus mainly on growth, today a company has to consider various stakeholders’ interests.

It is necessary to weigh and balance social equity, ecological compatibility and economic success in

the right way. These are also the three dimensions of sustainability how they were defined and agreed on at the United Nations Conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. On one hand, this implies the risk that companies focus too much on one of the three dimensions while disregarding the others.

On the other hand, synergy effects can be used.

By producing more ecologic products with fewer resources, a cost advantage can be achieved while at the same time the company’s image can improve which finally can allow higher prices, higher margins and may allow the company to hire more employees. Combining the social, ecological and economical dimension of sustainability in the right way can lead to sustainability and growth happening at the same time.

Some companies are already considering this. Instead of publishing financial and social and ecological report separately, they publish one integrated company report (sustainability report) that covers all the three dimensions.

This shows that besides the financial numbers, companies consider the other dimensions as important or even equal. In the future, only companies which manage to keep the right balance will be able to gain customers’ and investors’ trust and continue growing. After focusing solely on shareholder value caused casualties during financial crisis, focusing on responsibility instead can be the key to successful business, today as well as in the future, when other crises may be about to come. 

the Article is partly based on Kolb/Wilke, Möglichkeiten und Probleme der Prüfung von Nachhaltigkeitsberichten.

Seminar: Stakeholderorientierte unternehmensführung (darmstadt, 2009). tASK GrouP oN SoCIAL ANd ENvIroNMENtAL rESPoNSIBILIty to stay abreast of these developments, EStIEM has started a task Group on Environmental and Social responsibility.

Its aim is to make EStIEM a Non-Governmental organisation that considers the three dimensions of sustainability and to give EStIEMers the chance to gather experiences in these fields before they start their professional life.

CuS

Growth versus/And Stability

Recent work attempts to explain how the industrial revolution started in England in the 1800s as societal and cultural changes retarded population growth, enabling an accumulation of wealth diverted to productivity enhancing social assets.

Humans on planet Earth are not unlike bacteria in a test tube, both consuming limited resources, but there is a significant difference. Talking about England, one is reminded of the uneasiness in the 1700s as the primary source of energy, wood, became a scarce resource of the increasing population. It was the newly discovered Welsh coal that came to the rescue and became the energy source for the engine that drove the industrial revolution.

A similar scenario unfolded in the beginning of the 20th Century, as coalfields were almost depleted.

The British government in the mid 20th Century built nuclear power plants to supply the island with the increasing needs of energy. One may thus ponder how the Malthusian models of limited resource population dynamics should be interpreted when there is predominant human ingenuity and technology.

One thing is clear. Such phenomena relate to exceedingly large and complex systems. Simple approaches that yield rather quick predictions are to fall short. Moreover, humans have very little insight into sustainability. Just as concepts of quantum mechanics, concepts of sustainability seem foreign. How could a single photon pass through two slits at the same time to produce an inference pat-

tern? We humans are not used to observing things in the Planck scale (1035 m). We can predict things in the 1 kg and 1m range, but do neither have the feel for things in the quantum world nor for scarce resources. Never before have we affected the climate in a global scale, or had to consider that the oceans are limited. Human evolution has not prepared us for all this.

Here is a task for the industrial engineer and management scientist (IE/MS). Lacking insights, we must measure and understand. Is a paper cup really worse for the environment than a glass mug? What about the significant amount of energy needed to produce the glass and the need to wash it, often with hot water and detergents? Complex dynamical systems that combine engineering, people and economics have traditionally been associated with our discipline. We are well trained in the tools of those. Moreover, as new policies will be developed to tackle the tactical concerns, more opportunities will arise for the IE/MS professions.

IE/MS has always been associated with efficiency.

There is a fundamental relationship between efficiency and short term concerns of sustainability.

Simply put, the more efficient a system is, the more sustainable it is, at least in the short run.

FoCuS

SENCEr yErALAN

We add, in a test tube full of nutrients, some bacteria. That quickly multiplies, first exponentially, consuming the available food. However, as the food is gradually turned into waste products, the growth of the population slows, eventually reversing in direction. When the food is gone, so are the bacteria. The quantification of such population dynamics is the basis of many dynamical models: most notably, the Malthusian model and its derivatives. The Malthusian model is significant, not only because it inspired such fundamental developments as the theory of evolution, but as it continues to be a focus of interest and investigation.

37

The Industrial Engineering Department at METU, with support from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey and the University of Florida, introduced two new courses, IE 719 Sustainable Systems Engineering and IE 499 Sustainable Systems Management in Fall 2008. It seems that issues of sustainability are wide-ranging and complex enough to evade summary conclusions. Hence, we may expect these issues to be addressed in IE/MS curricula for some time. 

A Courtesy Professor of the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Florida, Dr. Sencer Yeralan has been at METU since 2008 as a visiting scholar, working with graduate students on Complex Dynamical Systems, Sustainability, Open-Source Software, and the Philosophy of Science. Dr. Yeralan was a speaker at the TEDx Bosphorus Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. His talk focuesed on the process by which technologies develop, and the reciprocal relations between the social impact of new technologies and the process of technology development. www.yeralan.org

FoCuS

38

Assessing

the Risks before making Steps

oMEr ozKAN

Growth is an inevitable motivation for human being.

It is not just an individual motivation but also exists within nations’ and companies’ lives. Although it may bring success and development for nations and companies, it may also have destructive effects unless it is maintained under control. Sustainability is a key in order to avoid unexpected results of uncontrolled growth. Thus, companies aiming to have a long life need to find equilibrium between these two dynamics.

Increasing economic growth has always had a dominant position within the policies of all developing countries. On the other hand, sustainability is concerned with ensuring that the current generation meets their present needs without threatening future generations’ ability to do likewise.

Thus, achieving economic growth and sustainability simultaneously may not be possible. Similar to developing countries, companies with the motivation to grow rapidly have ignored the importance of sustainability for a long time until the recession occurred. Recession indicated the importance of sustainability and taught us not to forget about today while trying to increase the income in the future.

While forecasting about growth, it is necessary to analyze how fragile countries and sectors are.

Especially in developing countries, due to lack of capital, use of foreign resources does not match the rate of international financial stability. Being unable to maintain the sufficient discipline in capital markets, companies from these types of countries were forced to get excessive loans. For this reason, the companies ended up with losing their assets in any fragility of countries’ or world’s social, economical or political situation.

Reaching a sustainable growth rate is quite challenging as another problem with growth is management. It is important to preserve quality and standards when growing. Thus, as well as the investment made for the growth itself, an investment is required for the infrastructure. Otherwise it will not be possible to keep the same standards and it will be harder to manage bigger companies or countries with insufficient infrastructure.

Despite all these facts, there is also an inevitable fact that companies have to take into account.

Continuous growth has become a must in today’s economy as companies that cannot reach a sufficient size can no longer stay competitive after a certain period. There are some solutions for companies which would like to grow without losing their assets in a recession situation.

One of the important issues that needs to be taken into account is making prudent investments because growth should be based on sound resources and growth expectations should be realistic. In several sectors, the market does not allow the companies to live without growing rapidly. In this case, the company may choose merging with other companies which are in a similar situation. In this way, the risk of growth will be reduced while keeping growing. Energy sector is one of the best examples to understand such market dynamics. We can observe this case more clearly in a market where liberalisation has just started. For instance in Turkey, energy market liberalization began just seven years ago. Initially many local investors who had earned money from other sectors acquired power plants and electricity distribution regions by means of privatisation. However, the cake was too big and especially after the recession, the credibility of these

39

towards

FoCuS

Growth

local companies decreased due to their huge debt ratio. On the other hand, government did not stop and kept on transferring the operation rights of state owned energy companies. Many of these companies which have faced the bottom of very high debt burden were forced to be sold under their market value.

At this point, the companies which could find right partners at the right time to merge with are today the strongest energy players of Turkey.

To sum up, to survive in the race, companies need to be big enough in the market in which they play and their capital structure should be robust against fragility to reach necessary sustainability to have a long life. 

Omer Ozkan works at Zorlu Energy Group, Turkey, in the department of Business development and investments. He is also an ex-ESTIEMer, and graduated at Ankara-Bilkent.

40 CArEEr When job

invade

seekers

Facebook

As the downturn continues, millions of corporate managers - gripped by the job jitters - are rushing to join online social networks in a scramble to build their social capital. The popularity of sites such as LinkedIn is soaring: less than a year ago the site had little brand profile and was seen mostly as a venue for corporate suits trolling for professional contacts while plotting their next career move. Facebook, by contrast, has largely attracted individuals seeking a compelling site for fun social networking.

Today LinkedIn’s year-on-year growth is up nearly 200 percent in the United States and it now has more than 35 million members - many of whom were formerly employed within the hard-hit financial sector. And it’s just one of the many sites to which recession-struck managers are flocking: Xing (based in Germany), with its 7 million members and special Lehman Brothers alumni section, and Meet the Boss (based in the United Kingdom), which restricts membership to C-level financial types, are also experiencing burgeoning membership levels.This surging popularity of online social networking is transforming the nature of business networking, with profound implications for the way business people manage their careers. But it also augurs profound change for social networking itself.

With so many people stampeding into Webbased social networks, the line between social and business networking is becoming increasingly blurred. An important question is whether the values and codes of conduct specific to the virtual world will come into conflict with real-world values and norms. Facebook, where the idea of a “friend” is directly embedded in the interface, is increasingly cluttered with self-promoters, career artists, and marketing entrepreneurs. What happens as this trend intensifies and those using Facebook exclusively for career networking invade?

There are, of course, powerful economic reasons behind the trend. As sociologist Nan Lin puts it in his book, Social Capital,1 “Individuals engage

in interactions and networking in order to produce profits.” These profits are based upon information, influence, social credentials, and recognition. The accumulated social capital, meanwhile, helps individuals to gain competitive advantages in the labor market as a result of privileged access to “resources” located on the social networks.

Still, for many there’s nothing more irritating than when a new “friend” contacts you almost immediately with an inappropriate request for a favor.

Generally, it’s more advisable to approach social networking as a giver, not a taker, and gradually build relationships according to reciprocated favors. Overall, online social networking, with its support groups and trusted access, is governed by a culture of sharing, not selling.

And can the throngs of interlopers really be considered friends? Anthropologists tell us that it’s impossible to maintain stable social relationships with more than 150 people. Maintaining a professional network of more than 150 looser connections on LinkedIn might be plausible, but it would strain the richer social relations that make up the fabric of sites such as Facebook. Among Facebook’s 175 million members, the instances of “defriending” are already growing.

It’s a safe bet that if the economic downturn grinds on, we will witness further conflict between the nonrational instinct to connect socially and the rational calculation to build social capital for professional reasons. If so, it may put further strain on the notion of an online friend. We may find ourselves asking more frequently that age-old question, “What are friends for?” 

This article was originally published in McKinsey Quarterly, www.mckinseyquarterly.com. Copyright (c) 2009 McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.

41

Imagine being a student, looking for a program which would f it your needs best among 10 000 of new Master programs in Europe? StudyPortals is the European study choice portal, determined to become the complete study choice resource. It is aimed at any student who wants to become an international student in Europe and around the world and contains information closely related to such needs.

StudyPortals was originally an ESTIEM spinoff, started by 3 active ESTIEMers (Magnus Olsson, Thijs Putman, and Edwin van Rest). They saw the Bologna process coming and the changes brought by it, with its highest impact with the Bachelor-Master split in continental Europe. They also saw their friends struggling, trying to find their way among numerous resources with little or no information.

Sometimes there was only national information available, when it could have been on the level of the whole Europe, or larger. With the ESTIEM culture as a backdrop, these people recognised the growing needs for information as they saw how students had hard time deciding where to continue their studies.

At the same time they saw an opportunity for universities to promote their programs and to attract students on the international level, as well as to improve the mobility of their own students.

Just like any beginning, it was hard. First it was all about programming and after that, filling in the database. For this, universities needed to be convinced on somewhat emotional arguments that students really need the service and that it’s for their benefit as well. From top 100 universities, 70 were online during the first year, a fact that helped reach a critical mass. Nowadays, five to ten universities are added per month, and there are over 600 participating universities in 37 European countries. They project over 900 000 visits in to the site March 2010 alone!

Like mentioned before, it was a big challenge to become that big a study choice portal. Currently the best competitors don’t represent even ten percent of the size of StudyPortals, which covers Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD studies. But that definitely doesn’t mean they just sleep on laurels, as there are lots of new areas to explore. They currently work on ex-

CArEEr

Study Portals

panding more on the German and French markets, besides the other developing fields.

StudyPortals also works together with the EU Commission by building ScholarshipPortal.eu, a centralised EU database on all Europe- and nationwide scholarships, both of these for international student use. There is €16 000 000 000 scholarship funds in Europe which they are working on to make transparent. The current phase of this project is to collect data and fill in the database, which started in November. The plan is to go live in May with the first version, and the official launch is planned for September. There is a lot of potential for this project: Many national institutes have a lot of information on scholarships, so why not make best use of that information?

There is also a shared project with ESTIEM, StudyExperiences (SteXX) being developed. Upon completion of their exchange study semester/term, students are obliged to write a report. The idea is to make an experiences exchange (thus the abbreviation) in the form of a database which would help with the decision making process, on finding accommodation, funding, places to go etc. It must be stressed that this is different from what the ESTIEM Student Guide is doing, although there are some overlapping aims. This concept is individual-toindividual exchange, while ESTIEM Student Guide is edited content, and you have an compiled article about a certain university with completely different structure.

Do these people still keep close contact with ESTIEM? On a business basis, their ESTIEM contacts are being used, because of this wide network.

And on the personal level, it’s quite the same.

However, due to the workload, these people don’t get to participate in as many events as before – unfortunately.

What would Edwin van Rest, one of the founders of StudyPortals, then like to say to ESTIEMers?

“Enjoy your ESTIEM time, use the StudyPortals and whatever question, comment or any kind of feedback you have, send us an email at feedback@studyportals.eu.“ 

oCuS

CArEEr

42

What We Look For:

Success Drivers of P&G recruits and develops its people against core competencies called Success Drivers. At the core of this model are our Purpose, our Values and our Principles.

When most of us think about the PVP, we think first about integrity. This is what sets us apart from other companies and set the best P&G people apart as well. Our PVP is about more than not lying, stealing and cheating - it also speaks to the more subtle aspects of integrity - e.g. not working in an underhanded and subversive way - that really reflect a person’s character. It also speaks to our ability to build trust by being open, honest, straightforward, and candid. We do what we say, and we say what we mean.

Combined, these characteristics are our Success Drivers, the competencies that define how our people succeed in today’s business environment.

They are the characteristics we look for in new employees, how we measure performance in the Company and the basis for our development and career systems. 

http://www.pgcareers.com/howtoapply/whatwelookfor/page/34/default.htm

Ever wondered ... what is it like to work for P&G? Wi ll you please i nt r oduce your sel f t o t he ESTIEMers ?

EMrE SAKALLI

In a nutshell, I am a junior industrial engineer who is working through his third year in a highly respected international company. I had my B.Sc. degree from Bilkent University in 2006 and P&G was the company where I started my career in 2007. I might be the dictionary definition of an engineer with the way that I experience life and although I am usually ashamed of admitting this in social circles, I am happy about it.

I am currently the Material Supply Manager (MSM) for Paper division of P&G Gebze Plant in Turkey. My team manages all inbound material flow to Gebze BabyCare and FeminineCare lines. Our activities span a wide variety of tasks from hardcore material requirements planning to supply network loss elimination. I feel like I am

amongst a few lucky people since I have the opportunity to apply almost all of my college education to my profession.

How did your PG journey begin?

During my undergraduate years at Bilkent, I was planning to pursue a graduate degree abroad.

My GPA and department ranking was not bad and I was really interested in specialising in the field of supply chain and logistics. However, the urge to apply my learning to practice has overcome my interest in theory and I decided to start my career as soon as possible.

Due to a lack of interest, I always was a stranger to corporate world. I never really admired working in a big company. It somehow felt too real. I am sure that there are a number of undergraduates who know the feeling. And P&G,

FoCuS

being one of the most cited corporations, was actually associated with many negative thoughts in my mind.

Just for the sake of the challenge that P&G hired the best, I applied for P&G during campus interviews. Obviously I did not have the right motivation and I failed miserably in the first interview round.

Later on I decided to complete my military duty and get it out of the way. In the process, I had a vast amount of time to think about my purpose and goals in life: I wanted to be a well-known supply chain and logistics professional. I applied for P&G once again, this time with a clear heart and mind. As a result, my P&G journey started as a BabyCare Site Integrated Planning Leader in 2007.

How does it feel like working in P&G?

At first I regarded P&G as a big, multi-national school. After all, the most exciting supply chain ideas that I learned in university had always one good practical example from P&G. But later on, I have realised that this was not just a place to work or learn; it is a distinct culture with values not very different from my own. And it is a great feeling to work with people who share similar values with you regardless of their nationality, religion or level.

Trust comes almost automatically. This is really a rare thing to have in the corporate world.

Do you have any regrets about your university life?

Who doesn’t? My biggest regret was not participating enough in student clubs or organisations like ESTIEM. Academic skills were always a priority for me and I did not put much importance to the soft skills that I would gain from student clubs and organizations. When I look back, I realise that university life is much more than books, classes or projects. Anyone can open a book and learn something. In a university, people are expected to learn

43

from each other and traits like leadership, respect for each other, openness to new ideas, teamwork etc. that come with it are just invaluable in business life. Also, more friends would mean more fun for me.

What about your business life?

I cannot say I have many regrets at this early point in my career. Only from time to time I think that an MBA degree would have helped me to adapt to the corporate world but I still have time and opportunity for that.

What was the best career advice anyone has given to you?

I have yet to receive a particularly good one.

What makes P&G different from other companies?

There are very few companies in the world that could live and thrive as long as P&G did. The difference is undoubtedly P&G’s well defined Purpose, Values and Principles. Especially the five values, namely Trust, Integrity, Ownership, Leadership and Passion for Winning, are at the core of P&G’s philosophy. Sales and profit is not seen as the main purpose but an outcome of the Purpose, Value and Principles. And these are not just words for P&G. You really experience it. I strongly suggest the readers to visit the P&G website and read the PVP themselves.

What is your suggestions to ESTIEMers about their careers?

We should not put off asking the hard questions and be honest about the answers: Who am I? What do I want from life? What do I enjoy doing? We should take time to know ourselves, heart and soul.

A person can never be satisfied solely by trying to achieve the hopes, dreams and aspirations of someone else or society in general. Only WE can find our true, unique path.  interviewed by Nazli Oguz

CArEEr

CArEEr

44

judith Schlegl about her experience with the

judIth SChLEGL

Growing up in Reutlingen, a city where Bosch has been established for many years (Automotive Electronics Division), I wanted to get to know Bosch better already during my high school years through an internship, or even to work there some day.

But first I moved to Dresden to start my studies, which was Applied Mathematics (Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering). After the intermediate diploma I wanted to do an internship. Mathematics is a lot of theory, and I wanted some practical experience. So I applied at Bosch in Reutlingen and was accepted. I finally had the chance to get to know Bosch and I have to say that after the internship, I was even more convinced that my goal was to apply to Bosch for my first full-time job.

In the summer of 2007 I finished my studies, but I had already started applying for jobs at different companies four months earlier. Of course, one of them was Bosch.

I applied for direct entries, but also for the Junior Managers Program, as it seemed the best fit to my job expectations and my background.

The Junior Managers Program has been set up to prepare qualified young talents to take on executive tasks. It offers four to six different rotations, one of them abroad; a mentor in a higher management level; networking and more, so, a perfect opportunity to start a great career at Bosch.

The expectations of Bosch towards the applicants for the Junior Managers Program are extracurricular activities, a minimum of six months studying or working abroad, graduating with above average grades, speaking a foreign language and having done one or several internships. As I had spent two years in the United States and had done a lot of extra-curricular activities, sometimes already in a leadership position, along with my studies, I was quite confident that I fulfilled the general qualities. So I started the online application.

Junior Manage If your application fits the expectations, the first step is an application day in Stuttgart. There you have the opportunity to introduce yourself and to present your solution to the small case study, which was a part of the invitation letter. Besides that, you receive a lot of information about Bosch and the Junior Managers Program.

Fortunately, Bosch was interested in me and asked me to come to an interview to Homburg, where the Diesel Systems division has their largest production plant in Germany.

After a second interview in Stuttgart with the technical division executive manager of Diesel Systems, who would be my mentor, I got accepted in the Junior Managers Program of Bosch in the field of production. My dream became true!

Monday October 1st, 2007, was the first day of my new job. I was really excited about it and wondering what my first tasks would be and what the next two years would look like.The day started in the HR department in Homburg. I received a lot of information about the plant and Bosch in general and after that I was picked up by my new boss.

He was the group leader of a manufacturing department which produces diesel injectors. He was in charge of the deburring process of the injector body, a completely new field for me.

My tasks in the next six months were quite diverse. The main project was eliminating an electrical chemical deburring process at some intersectional bores in the injector body, as this was the bottleneck process in this manufacturing chain.

Then I had a few small projects dealing with the “Bosch Production System (BPS)� and a cost reduction project.

Six months passed very quickly. For my second position I stayed in Homburg, but I moved to the BPS department. It was a five months stay, where I had the chance to organize a Homburg plant-wide event for the executives of the Diesel Systems divi-

ers Program

of

sion. This had nothing to do with my production focus, but it was a great chance to build up my network.

In summer 2008 my project abroad started. I got the chance to move to Jihlava in Czech Republic and work there for six months. The assignments abroad are very special ones, also in my case. First of all you don’t understand the language, and with a language like Czech, even after six months and language classes there is still a lot to learn. Besides that the people work and react differently from what you are used to in your home country. The six months in Jihlava were the best part of my Junior Managers Program. My project was really good: I led the rebuilding of an assembly line into a “U” shaped lean line.

Besides work, I had a lot of Czech friends which always makes living abroad easier. For the time abroad, Bosch also gives you the chance to learn the language, through tutoring, and assists with all things like finding an apartment, taking care of the moving, and booking flights if necessary.

Six months later, I moved again, this time to Stuttgart, where I had the opportunity to work in a corporate department of Bosch, which in my case dealt with the central control of production.

After the two years were completed, the question was what to do after the Junior Managers Program? In my case the plant manager in Homburg supported me very well in finding a fitting position: he recommended me for some open positions in his plant. Finally I decided in favour of a position where I would have the chance to lead a small cross-functional team and where I would have the opportunity to work on new products, which Homburg is going to produce in the upcoming years.

45

So, are you still contemplating joining the Junior Managers Program of Bosch? Well, from my experience, I highly recommend it. If you are able to delegate tasks and competencies and to motivate others, if you are a globally-minded team player with an entrepreneurial mindset, and if you are looking for a professional challenge that will start your career path in the right direction, in a company which is located world wide in more than 50 countries and 260 locations, then the Bosch Junior Managers Program is exactly what you are looking for! 

CArEEr

46 StudENt GuIdE Exchange Programs:

Broadening your Horizons

MArIA MIChINA CANSu yILMAz

Have you ever spent a night away from home?

Do you know how it feels to be homesick? Some of exchange students even have to drop out of their programs because they miss their home. So prepare that you will miss your home, start dealing with your feelings on time and remember that your stay will be only for a certain time.

Some students are afraid because of the foreign language. You have to admit that exchanges are the best way to learn foreign languages and improve one’s knowledge of the English language, On the other hand, some students are worried about food in different countries. The truth is that most countries have great food - just imagine eating lasagna in Italy or a pastry in France with red wine?

This year we joined the Vision event organized by Local Group Lappeenranta with the title ‘Communication Over Borders’. We had really good lectures there, one of which was about Group Decision Support System (GDSS) Lab. In this laboratory people discuss an issue by focusing on its good and bad aspects: they try to find solutions to lower the bad aspects and to strengthen the good ones. Our discussion topic was ‘being an exchange student’.

We started with the advantages of the exchange programs and came up w it h some remarkable points, like standing on your own feet, good career opportunities, new language, learning about other cultures etc.

After a voting, we c ho s e t he most important one: broadening our horizons. It

was enough to explain everything. When you go to another country as an exchange student, thanks to your new experiences, you come back as a new person. Your behaviour, your relationships with others and your new perspective of life are strongly affected and improved. Moreover, you become more likely to be successful in every part of your life, thanks again to the qualifications gained through this adventure.

Secondly, we focused on problems that exchange students might face. The potential problems we came up with were mainly about getting used to a new culture, food, friendships, expensive taxes, differences of credit systems between universities etc. Then we tried to find solutions to these problems which can be summarised as an assignment for student coaches. Student coaches would have a number of assigned students they would help whenever needed, with issues like increased scholarship opportunities for payments and the availability of consulting university advisors before going there to arrange credit differences.

When the lecture was over, there was the greatest final phrase: broadening the horizon. Although there are difficulties, once you compare the advantages of an exchange experience to the problems that might occur before and during your time there, you see that those problems and difficulties are there just to be overcome. Moreover, when so many students have taken and keep taking the challenge of such a great experience, it cannot be impossible. So, why shouldn’t it be you taking it? 

47

StudENt GuIdE

Crossing the Boundaries of Familiar

A quick overview of my situation: I am exchanging in the engineering section of a huge university renowned to be one of Japan’s most internationalised, my academic supervisor speaks English and I studied Japanese for 4 years before coming.

It couldn’t be that bad…Or could it? Well first of all, forget about English, it might be of use at the university, sometimes in the biggest cities such as Tokyo, but usually Shakespeare won’t help. Trust me; you’d better have some Japanese speaking skills or a lot of patience - or preferably both.

Simple things can very easily turn into an ordeal if your communication ability is limited to the very basics. Of course, nothing is impossible and as you study the language and practice, things get much easier. Yet I’ve seen people not making any effort to try and overcome this barrier and that leads to isolation and a lot a frustration. That is unfortunate, but in my opinion Japan is not, as of today, that foreigner-friendly, which means it requires considerable efforts if you want to settle for real.

First of all: most things around you are written in Kanji, the equivalent to the Chinese alphabets that take ages to learn. Remember Bill Murray in “Lost in translation”? This is not just some fantasy.

Also, you stand out. This may sound extremely stupid as it is, but this is the kind of practicalities that you should keep in mind when establishing yourself in eastern Asia. People target you as a gaijin (improper way to say foreigner, as opposed to the politically correct word: gaikokujin) from miles away, may it be a matter of phenotype, fashion, anything. And they react accordingly. This is the most intriguing point, from awe to proper disdain; the reaction span is wide and always surprising. Once again, this tends to make some people

paranoid as you get stared at constantly, or at least feel like you’re not blending in at all. Your speaking ability and knowledge of the Japanese culture will partially make up for that, but not entirely. I hope it doesn’t sound too bitter, it’s not meant too, the good part (yeah there is one!) is still to come.

At this point, if you haven’t cracked open like an overripe nut it’s time to start enjoying yourself.

You’ve landed on the closest equivalent to planet Mars, all it takes is to walk down a few blocks and you’ll eventually bump into something that is going to amaze you. Girls in kimonos, miniskirts in winter, drunk salary men singing late at night in the subway, different Japanese fashion for men - to put it mildly... But really, it’s not only about the landscapes or the places to see, everything here has the potential to strike you. Onsen (natural hot baths with mandatory sheer nakedness), ATMs that work from 9 to 5 and are closed on every single holiday (yeah, in Japan robots are the only ones not to cope with overtime) and of course karaoke nights out with your boss… I guess I could spend ages just mentioning all the weird/interesting things around.

In a nutshell, Japan is not just another possible choice when it comes to picking your exchange destination. You’d better be prepared to just surrender everything you’re used to.”Otherwise you will end up with many difficulties with people here and start believing that it’s because they dislike you, they don’t speak your language on purpose, they don’t behave like they should and believe me, the list is long.”. But if you crave for exotic adventures or if you know what to expect you might as well find yourself blessed in there. Now please allow me one last comment: if you assess yourself as mentally sane and socially skilled, you might still want to reconsider your choice … Did I tell you about Hello Kitty? 

MAEddINE touAK

As I’m sitting in the waiting room at the Narita airport, Tokyo, waiting for flight NH0205 to take me home to my kin, I can pretty much picture myself 4 months ago, ready to make the trip the other way around. Oh man, looking back if there’s one thing I can tell it’s this: I had no clue. Yokoso Japan!

StudENt GuIdE

48

Seville

Pieces of hi history at every Corner Escuela técnica Superior de Ingenieros (EtSI)

rAFAEL FErrIN

Seville is the cultural, financial and industrial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of Andalusia at the Guadalquivir riverside. Population of the metropolitan area is 1,493,416 (2009), ranking as the fourthlargest metropolitan area of Spain. Seville is located inland between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

The location is ideal with only two hours drive from “Costa del Sol”, one hour from Cadiz and Tarifa, one and a half from Portugal and Algarve or two hours by train from Madrid.

The University of Seville was founded some 500 years ago and has 57 000 students and 4 400 faculty members. The ETSI (5 000 students, 370 staff members) plays an important role in technological innovation and regional development. Its technical and scientific competence satisfies the demands of society and provides a considerable share of the qualified personnel employed in Andalusia. Judging from its activities and vocation, the ETSI aims to be an enterprising university, actively taking part in the development of its social and economic environment and cooperating with national and international partners.

Industrial Engineering in Spain

The first engineering school in Spain was founded in Madrid in 1850 as Industrial Engineering School and five more were founded in 1857: Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Vergara y Gijón.

Today, Industrial Engineering still includes electrical, mechanical, chemical, electronic, construction, automation, management and many more engineering areas (all but aeronautics, telecommunications and forestal). Here in Seville you can study Industrial Engineering Degree (management and other 10 specialisation areas), Master in Industrial Engineering (25% management), Telecommunication, Aeronautical, Chemical, and Management Engineering (all of them at Degree or Master levels).

Our Engineering School

Seville University has nine campuses all over the city, but I’m afraid our school is not at the city centre; it’s at the lonely business riverside. Anyway Seville is small enough to walk around or go by bicycle everywhere (and flat... absolutely flat).

Our school is hard... about ten daily hours’ dedication to pass an entire course, less than 40% success at the exams and 8.5 years as mean time for a five courses career.

We have many professors to feel proud about, almost all of them speak English fluently and some subjects are in English.

But don’t panic! As Erasmus, you can choose only your favourite subjects, and management is the easiest career here. The school has a nice tutoring program for Erasmus students. They will assign you a volunteer student (a tutor) to help you, and there will be lots of easy-going students around to guide you step by step and make you feel at home.

A wonderful city with a wonderful weather

The history can be seen in every corner of Seville. It was the capital of the known world for many years , even for centuries. But the best of Seville is that it has hosted nine different civilisations throughout the history, absorbing the best of each one in a tolerant environment. This is the reason why people from Seville are so open-minded and easy-going.

But our culture and history are not the only things that shine here! Our weather is incredible, with only 52 rainy days and 2 898 sunny hours per year.

You will enjoy each day here. Just ask someone who has already been here; Seville is different. 

49

StudENt GuIdE

Romanians

Cultural Prejudice on....

Romanians are crazy drivers

Actually, most often the quotes range from “crazy drivers” to a guy asking where he could get life insurance when he was taken back to the airport. With Bucharest being overcrowded, being on time is always a problem and some people do give up safety for speed. It’s not the same in the rest of the country, but if you plan to drive through Bucharest, keep in mind that not going straight away on the green light will make people honk. Just so you know….

Romanians speak Russian

Romanian is a Latin language, Russian is Slavic. While Russian was a foreign language taught in schools in the 60’s and 70’s, you would be hard pressed to find a curriculum today that includes it.

For anyone under forty years, it is extremely unlikely to have a decent knowledge of Russian.

Romanians love football

Damn right. And we get very competitive in it, even though the recent results in both national and club competitions hardly seem to justify that. With overwhelming likelihood, football is the first sport you learn as a Romanian child.

Budapest is the capital of Romania

An unusually common mistake is that Bucharest is the capital of our neighbouring country Hungary.

We get it that both start with a B, but it’s really not that hard…

Romanians are hospitable

Yes, people will go out of their way to make sure you are OK if you are their guest. While people in Bucharest are generally more reserved, it can get quite irritating in the countryside. If you visit Romania outside the big cities, be prepared to go on a diet when you get back home. And don’t refuse this hospitality unless you are willing to watch them get very upset. I have to admit that I sometimes do that when no other form of entertainment is available.

Romanians are vampires

Yep, that one is true. I’ll never forget the look on a participant’s face when we entered the Bran Castle and he was expecting blood on the f loor and corpses tied to the walls. I tried to explain that we only do that for Christmas, but he was still very disappointed…

Romanians get upset when you mispronounce names

T his really depends more on the person, but I have seen it happen. As a rule, the harder the name is to pronounce, the more likely it is that the person will get upset. It only applies to personal names though, not the names of places or such. The simple way to get around it is to call everyone by their first names, which are usually quite palatable.

So there you have it. We look forward to seeing you in Bucharest. Don’t forget to bring an extra pint of blood and your Russian to whatever-language-you-speak dictionary. And remember to get a life insurance… 

vICtor vLAdArEANu

Of course the initial reaction to being asked to write this sort of article was “Why me? What would I know?” Well, I have been a Romanian my whole life, so I guess I’m not entirely clueless… Also life in ESTIEM has been very useful in this respect, since most of these prejudices are from conversations I’ve had over the years.

15 – 16 May 13 – 21 May 17 – 22 May 25 – 29 May 31 – 04 june

10

AGENdA

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!

MAy

Europe3d Poland | Gdansk - Warsaw Activity Week Management olympics | Novi Sad Local responsible Forum | Groningen Activity Week | Istanbul-Bogazici vision - Efficiency in Communication Final Conference | Eindhoven

juNE

30 – 04 july olympixx - EStIEM Anniversary Event | Karlsruhe

8 – 11 july Activity Week ExIt-festival | Novi Sad 19 – 25 july Brain trainer | Budapest 25 – 08 August Summer Academy | zagreb

juLy

AuGuSt

08 – 22 Aug Summer Academy | Siegen

NovEMBEr

9 – 15 Nov 20th Anniversary Council Meeting | Finland

 16 billion euro worth of scholarships is yearly available in Europe

Get your share!

Did you ever quest for funding to study abroad? Have you ever had to plough through the maze of websites on regional scholarships, corporate funds, financial aid, award competitions, excellence prizes and so on?

ScholarshipPortal.eu will put an end to this! One single information source, presenting all funding opportunities for your European study ambitions. Get your share!

What once started out as the ESTIEM Student Guide grew to become Europe’s most popular study choice platform. Students can find and compare thousands of opportunities, including many IEM Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhDs. And soon, also scholarships.

Where are you going to study?

Take flight at Brose!

Are you creative, motivated and dynamic? Then you can spread your wings with us.

These characteristics have helped us reach 5th position among international familyowned automotive suppliers. Objective-driven students and graduates enthusiastic about technology can take on challenging tasks and quickly assume responsibility in our company. More information is available on the Career section of our homepage.

www.brose.com – More comfort and safety for your everyday mobility