SOLUTION - AIESEC Conference

From 14 to 17 February 2008 AIESEC in Austria and Emersense together with a variety of reputable partner organizations, guests and speakers hosted Solution – a learning platform for sustainable leadership. Building on Theory U – an MIT developed concept for personal and social transformation – this year’s conference aims to enable and empower young people from across the world to take initiative and provide leadership for a meaningful and sustainable development of themselves and their communities. Throughout the four-day conference, about 100 selected participants engaged in an intense experience – marked by the integration of latest learning methods with arts and formal education – to build clarity, confidence, capability and courage to contribute to a sustainable future.


In my role as initiator and one of the founders of self I was invited as one of the guest speakers to attend this exciting conference. I was asked to contribute through my very personal story of realizing my dream and vision in order to inspire others to take charge of their aspirations and encourage them to take action howeever small or big. I was asked to share the tools we used in attracting the resources self needed to get off the ground and talked about the up’s and down’s of a social start-up. But what amazed me most and put me in real awe of the team that organised the conference and was responsible for the quality of the people participating, was the level of meaningful conversations I encountered amongst this group of international students. I felt very humbled to be part of this event and be welcomed not just as an ‘external’ (as the orga committee called it) but as ‘one of us’.


And so I left with gratitude and the sense that there is an immense shift of consciousness happening out there. That people start asking how they can contribute to a better world much at a much younger age than in previous times rather than waiting for ‘midlife crisis’ to hit them and re-frame such ‘crisis of meaning’ into an opportunity to follow our dreams and visions. I’m convinced that I learnt at least as much as the delegates these three days that I had the pleasure of participating in the conference and I am looking forward to many more cooperations with AIESEC in particular and students interested in social innovation and entrepreneurship in general.


For more information on AIESEC, AIESEC Austria or the Solution Conference click here http://www.aiesec.at/solution