As the summer passed, oikos Associate Christoph was busy reading, writing and planning. In his position, he joined the management team in mid-July to identify and research the sustainbility challenges connected to the Digital Economy, i.e. the increasing digitalization of many realm of daily life and work.

Christoph shares his progress in this short video. Look forward to interesting new insights into an emerging field.

Watch the video here:

To conclude our recent five-day programme in the Republic of Georgia we did an exercise where a group sits down without using chairs. You may have been part of this yourself. Forming a tight circle, each person sits on the knees of the person behind. Through collective effort, the seemingly impossible is achieved. It’s a lot of fun – often causing surprise and hilarity in equal measures.

It seemed a fitting way to end. The theme of our event was Management Education for a Better World – an in-depth exploration of how we can use collaborative approaches to learning to develop collaborative approaches to solving the world’s challenges.

The event was hosted by Oikos International, the global student movement for sustainability. It was co-facilitated by two students from Austria, Anna Beyer and Julia Weber, whom I have been mentoring for the last two years. We have co-facilitated sessions in New York, Switzerland and at the Paris Climate Talks, all supported by our partners at GRLI who have been keen to support the next generation of responsible leaders. This was by far our longest and most demanding session.

Georgia is an incredibly interesting country. It nestles between continental Europe, Turkey and the Middle East. Not surprisingly its history is rich, its culture is diverse and its traditions are strong. Georgia has been a more or less intact nation since around the sixth century and was introduced to Christianity in the fourth century…

Continue reading the article here.

The third oikos Summer School took place in Tbilisi; in the heritage country of Georgia, with the theme of “Education for a Better World-Transforming Management Education”.

The Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, better known as Tbilisi State University (TSU), is the oldest university in the Caucasus region. TSU hosted this Summer School for international and Georgian students. The event lasted for 5 days, had 30 participants from 6 countries and was financed by Tbilisi State University, Global Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI) and PASHA Bank. oikos Summer School was facilitated by COMMIT.

The oikos Summer School 2016 took an in-depth look at the kind of management education we need for a better world. The world faces its biggest ever challenges: climate change, war, mass migration, growing concentration of wealth and power.

Over the course of the Summer School participants had the opportunity to explore their own leadership skills, looked at how they want to develop them and how they wanted to make a difference in the world. They also worked collaboratively with others to design and rehearse new and innovative approaches to management education – changes that can be implemented in their university.

On the first day, after a warm welcome by Ani Lomouri, the president of oikos Tbilisi, oikos International Executive Board Member Levan Pangani talked about oikos and introduced facilitators, Julia Weber and Anna Beyer. Julia and Anna told the participants what layed in store for the next 5 days. PASH Bank’s representative Diana Tigishvili also gave a speech to the participants and highlighted the importance of the project.

The opening ceremony was broadcasted by Imedi TV. During the Summer School participants were involved in different kind of sessions, experienced different learning methods and prepared their own sessions for presentation.

Day 5 was started with the speech of dean of Faculty Economics and Business TSU. Participants introduced  their sessions to the guest audience and shared their reflections to each other. Each participant was awarded a certificate.

Written by: Ani Lomouri