Are you wondering how’s life in the AI office when only half of the team is here?
Well, this week I had some of the best meetings, some of my best realizations and some of my best achievements in my work with the non-corporate sector.

First of all, instead of two meetings that I originally planned I had four (one conference call with UNESCO, one meeting with Spiros – friend of Petroula, expert at EU funds; one with Gabitza about our non-corporate contacts in the Education field that I am managing, one with Eva Varga, my Hungarian mentor in non-corporate relations) and besides that the AI Management Team meeting was also extremely productive while we approved the grants to be submitted in the coming months. Basically I presented the potential grants, the Management Team gave feedback and ideas on how to polish these grant applications, and in addition we came up with twice as many great innovative ideas than the ones I presented!!!! I got sooo excited! I felt like sitting down immediately and doing all those things at once, at that very moment!!!
Also, another priority of mine was to sort out an old application of the Tempus programme of the EU that was done by a University and with AIESEC participating as a consortium member but we didn’t get involved in it until now. So, basically the money is already there, the application has been selected, it’s just the matter of offering our work to the consortium.
And guess what work is needed from AIESEC in this Tempus project? To develop online MBA courses about IT!!!! And as the AI IS team is developing a new global IS system right now, it clicked!!! …. Isn’t this something that the AI IS team is already doing? Isn’t their experience and learning as big as an MBA course about developing a new IS system in a global organization, effecting over 95 countries? Also, through this new IS system all organizational subsystems will be measured, which was not the case in the past! Are we aware of what kind of huge thing we are doing now in the AI IS team???? All of us got extremely excited about the idea!!!!
And during my other meetings not only have I received inputs to my work but by now I am more clear than ever on the direction of the global non-corporate area on a long term basis. I don’t have all the answers but after my meetings last week I know where to find the answers. And it’s such a great feeling that the direction we (my predecessor, Geta and I) took – somehow, unconsciously – was right! And another cool thing: all the things that I’m doing in the non-corporate area will contribute to my other favorite area of work: Financial Management Subsystem of AIESEC – in other words: how to achieve that the global organization (including all MCs and LCs) is financially sustainable? And I think some of the answers came last week…

And the cream on the cake was my study trip to Brussels on Friday.
As AIESEC International got selected as member of the Dutch Anna Lindh Network, I got invited to a study trip to Brussels to meet the Belgian Anna Lindh Network and learn together with them.
The meeting exceeded all my expectations!!!!
I have made the name of AIESEC extremely well-knows, I got the chance to make a 3 minute presentation about AIESEC in front of 10-15 NGOs that have a huge interest in the EuroMediterranean region, and of course I put an emphasis on our activities in the Middle East, the challenge of diversity and cultural dialogue between the Western and Arabic world, and after my presentation several people proactively approached me. :) E.g. a man from a University in Palestine said that he wants us to establish AIESEC in Palestine. And by the end of the discussion I invited him to AIESEC Symposium, too, which is a one day event, organized by AIESEC International, to be held in Cairo in February 2007.
Also, I could talk to the VIP guest of the day – Gianluca Solera, the global network coordinator of the Anna Lindh Foundation, who came directly from Egypt to Belgium. And besides the fact that he heard my AIESEC presentation, I shook hands with him afterwards and told him about the Symposium and that we were applying for a grant to the Anna Lindh Foundation. And even if we don’t get the fund, we would like to invite him to the Symposium because we believe we can contribute to achieving the objectives of the Anna Lindh Foundation – most importantly: dialogue between cultures, multilateral cooperation and exchange of people between cultures.

Also, during the day I had the opportunity to talk to some senior people from the EU and get to know more about their internal structures and priorities.
Of course we can see all these things on their website as well but the website is sometimes very complicated and it’s not that easy to find the relevant information, so it was extremely useful to hear the EU priorities from the mouth of such senior people.
And two of them were from the Middle East and Gulf Working Group where they prepare the agenda for meetings between the representatives of the countries of this region, and they confirmed what we unconsciously felt - that there is an extreme need for cultural understanding and dialogue between Western and Arabic/Islamic cultures these days.

And in the same time it confirmed for me that what AIESEC is doing with its initiatives in the Middle East is absolutely brilliant, we should focus a lot more on the topic of diversity in our organization and with our multicultural activities we are writing history in AIESEC – shaping the future of the world and truly moving towards piece and fulfillment of humankind’s potential – the ultimate vision of AIESEC.

Having been traveling till now through Ireland, Belgium, France, Republic of Macedonia and Greece I’ve seen many similarities and differences in these country realities in their external and internal environments but each of the visits had as well a very personal impact on me:

• In Ireland the MC team managed to leave me with a very strong emotion towards Irish culture while having only 1 Irish person on the MC.
• Belgian visit reminded me of the beauty of family traditions and marriage.
• My time in Paris made me realize that Paris is a city where I want to live at some point of my life for some time.
• Republic of Macedonia re-connected me with spirituality while being in centuries old monastery by the Ohrid lake.
• Greece was a place where I discovered the importance of balance between relaxation, having fun and working hard.

Each sentence for each country is a symbol I want to carry with me throughout my life. They are not something new but they are some fundamental things about life which I identify myself with. All the numerous things that put together my identity as a person are there with me always but nevertheless every moment of reflection enables me to realize what really matters and how I fit into the big picture of life.

It has been really interesting times for discovering myself and as well discovering AIESEC. Throughout these visits I’ve developed a dream and I wanted to share it with the rest of AIESEC.

What if the entire membership of AIESEC (the 20 000+ people) would genuinely understand AIESEC and connect to it?

What if all these people would go through a life changing experience in our organization?

I’ve been asking myself a question - what AIESEC really is? You might be wondering why should an AI director ask herself such a question… or thinking to yourself “Hellllo!!! Haven’t you read the Identity Toolkit?”

Sure I’ve read the Toolkit and attended I don’t know how many AIESEC Identity sessions and delivered quite many of them as well. But this is not AIESEC. AIESEC is what our members live every day, it is what I live every day and it is what you live every day. But which AIESEC are you living? How often do you think about it or enable other people to think about it? Is it the AIESEC described in statements that constitute AIESECs Identity? Or are you one of the hundreds of aieseccars who have never met an intern? Are you maybe one of the aieseccars who never met his/her MC? Are you one of the aieseccars who have never attended any AIESEC conference? Are you one of the aieseccars who have never been asked “what did you learn”? Are you one of the members who had to say about their LC after an Identity session “well, it looks like we are not AIESEC”?

I’ve been rediscovering AIESEC every single day. And it is something really beautiful.

Something unique. Something exciting.
Something life changing.

Which is the AIESEC you are living?

But for AI 06-07 it was more beautiful, I was able to organize a small celebration in my room with team members joining in.

We had some great time which involved people being dressed in Indian clothes

All room being arranged in festive spirit of Diwali with more then 200 Candles in my room, all room lit up with light

Awesome Indian food and desert (this time it was not common white milk balls) AI members know what I mean

And followed by watching a Bollywood movie together with team “Lagaan” , the movie subtitled "Once upon a time in India", is an award-winning movie made in India, and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The plot of movie is on situation of India in per-independence era (1853) and some interesting tournament of Cricket.

This was awesome chance as team got not just glimpse of Bollywood but as well the crazy sport we (me, Amit and Ryan) play in office, popularly called as Cricket

Man I can very gladly say, this was diwali when I didn’t missed the fact that I was not in my country, and it is all because of all guys who came,

Thanks guys , you gave me a beautiful moment for life time

Abhi :)

Hey there guys,

My first post on the AI blog.. actually my first post on any blog :) .. But, it's certainly something worth sharing!

I am now in the middle of the Strategic Autumn Meeting in AIESEC Germany as I am their country coach this year. We are more than 300 people from all over Germany and the world, all of us in a position of leading either our local teams or our national teams or our global teams.

And throughout the last days I've realized one simple thing back and again, though I think one of the most important ones for the impact that each of us can make without having to recite or learn by heart any super mega millions of papers, trainings, etc.

How many of us have at least once lived something in AIESEC that was extremely cool! A team that we loved being in, an event that we adored taken part in, a sales meeting in which we succeeded to achieve what we were there for and even more, a selection process in which we selected people who are now TLs, LCPs, MCs, MCPs etc... ?

Each of US, has at least one really great story that we have lived!! What about using them?

What about making sure that we really understand why our stories have been beautiful, SHARE that in any context, any opportunity and make sure to Re-CREATE at least the same beautiful story for the people we are working for?!

Try this in your next national or local conference, meeting ... in your next talk to your team mates or members etc. Try putting people together and sharing their best stories and what made those best stories so great and you will see the power of it!! Just as I can see it here in SAM each and every day ;) And there are stories that I have lived maybe even 5 years ago, about my incredible team experience in my EB term in 03 -04, maybe about the times when I was an OCP of a project that later on was actually categorized as a P-BoX etc. ... or stories that maybe I did not personally lived, but I made sure to listened to others and record them ;)

A beautiful story.. is a beautiful story and brings impact no matter which reality you are in!

Cheers to everyone,
Gabiza

This is the update we received from Pinar, Director of Strategy this morning on our way to MMM (our weekly Monday Morning Meeting!). We thought she was on her way to Armenia, but the visit was changed at the last minute. Here's her story:

“...[After her visit to Armenia was delayed] she talked to Georgia to be in Batumi (Second biggest city in Georgia) LC recruitment conference as they asked her before to support. They happily accepted it. So she decided to fly to Georgia. But she couldn’t find a flight ticket because it was too late and she had to take the bus. So she has been in a bus for 14 hours.

For now she’s waiting for sun to rise to cross the border. By the way here in the border she heard that Russia has sent thousands of soldiers to Georgia border two days ago because of something. She hopes that it wouldn’t be problem. Her worry is not about security her worry is about president to be busy with this stuff and cancel the meeting with her. She will call them tomorrow.

All these things couldn’t disappoint Pinar! Because she was a girl that nothing can stop when she’s striving for an achievement. “ :)