120 oikos members and alumni packed their bags and booked their flights to Barcelona, Spain to participate in the oikos Spring Meeting 2018 from March 8 to 11. The Spring Meeting is our annual event hosted by different chapter every year. This year oikos Barcelona volunteered to welcome oikees to their  mesmerizing city.

The Spring Meeting was comprised of a conference and workshops on Sustainable Tourism and Mobility, as well as of the oikos Legislative Meeting. 

Conference and Workshops on Sustainable Tourism and Mobility

Sustainable Tourism and Mobility was the topic of the Spring Meeting this year.  Dr. Oksana Udovyk, UNWTO representative spoke about the importance of Sustainable Tourism in relation with the Sustainable Development Goals, while Ricard Santomà, a professor at  ESADE Business School, discussed challenges posed by tourism industry. Subsequent panel enabled the oikos members to debate the topic with the speakes.

Workshops organised by sustainability oriented companies enabled our members to learn how sustainability is integrated into real business models. The oikos workshops also discussed sustainable tourism and mobility from different angles. For example, workshop on Pluralist Economics focused on solving the problems in sustainable tourism industry considering different perspective of the diverse schools of economic thought, meanwhile Knowledge Exchange Workshop devoted attention on sharing sustainable mobility practices from different countries.

In addition, oikos Chapters presented their local projects during the Project Fair and  walked around Barcelona with the hosts from oikos Barcelona Chapter.

oikos Legislative Meeting 

The participants had an opportunity to meet candidates for oikos President 2019&2020, listen to their speeches and ask questions during the debate session. 29 chapters out of 38 eligible to vote took part in the election. Majority of them (58,62%) voted in favour of Clémentine Robert, oikos Reims alumna, former oikos EB and current oikos Outreach Manager. Clémentine will officially take office in October, 2018.

Part of the Legislative Meeting also focused on discussions around topics vital for our organization. The participants debated and voted in favour of the new wording for oikos vision and mission, as well as for our core values of respect, integrity, accountability and openness, that have been  our guiding principles for the past 30 years. oikos Annual Report 2017 was also approved during the voting session. In addition, oikos Belgrade and oikos Lund became full chapters of oikos.

The Spring Meeting enabled our members to meet their friends from the oikos community and get inspired for a fruitful year ahead.

Pictures from the event are available on our flickr page.

oikos Witten/Herdecke hosted oikos Winter School in Witten, Germany from March 1 to 7, 2018. The Winter School titled “Bottoms Up, Tops Down” revolved around Sustainable Development Cooperation and explored main challenges and drawbacks in the field.

A group of 20 avid individuals was selected to participate in the Winter School. The participants from all walks of life and from as different parts of the world as Italy, China, Austria, Japan, Belgium, Germany, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, and El Salvador sat together to discuss the topic with each other, as well as with leading experts and field professionals. The organizers created the atmosphere where everyone felt welcome and willing to share their own ideas and thoughts. “The open-minded and very nice people, both from the organization and participants enabled a personal and trustworthy environment in which everyone’s input was being valued.” – wrote one of the participants. 

During the Winter School — in keynotes, discussion and workshop series the participants had a chance to learn about the Sustainable Development Cooperation from representatives of academia, NGOs, and the private sector. Their diverse background and experience allowed the participants to gain comprehensive knowledge and become familiar with different approaches existing in the field of Development Cooperation.

On the last day of the Winter School, during the Open Space session, the students reflected on the Day after Tomorrow, as they sought to answer the question: What change does the Development Cooperation Need?

The participants left the School with positive impressions. The absolute majority of those surveyed (17 out of 20 participants filled in the questionnaire) positively evaluated both the academic and the organizing part of the Winter School. 

The Winter School proved a great success thanks to the participants, the speakers, and the team –  who in their own individual way contributed to an open-minded, inspiring atmosphere.

More pictures from the Winter School is available on our Flickr page.

Follow oikos Witten/Herdecke and oikos Winter School on Social Media.

oikos chapter presidents and chapter leaders, as well as the oikos International Executive Board (EB) members and management team came together in Barcelona, Spain from March 7 to 8, 2018 in order to share their expertise and experience, reflect on current projects and discuss future plans. 

The oikos EB presented the oikos strategy 2018-2020, while the presidents and chapter leaders shared their perspectives and analysed their own chapters’ role in achieving the strategy. They emphasized the importance of cooperation between students  from different cultures and development of change agents for curriculum change.

oikos Trustee, Mark Wade moderated a session on oikos Aspirations. The participants shared why they joined oikos and how they contribute to the organization with their experience, knowledge and activities. Mark Wade explained the significance of passion and structure in advocating for a change. “We need a deeper motivation and understanding of why we want to change the world and make it into reality. But those will evaporate unless there are structure and rules. When we bring together the passion and rules real impact happens”- Mark noted.

In addition, the participants received detailed information on oikos International programs and current openings for our chapters, as well as the members and alumni. The chapter representatives also mapped their local projects, discussed challenges they need to overcome to bring their ideas to life and sought for channels for developing cross-chapter initiatives.

After long sessions the participants felt “Motivated, Inspired, Driven, Empowered, Integrated, Thoughtful, Overwhelmed, Reflected, Full of ideas, Tired, Amazed, and Impatient”, in that demonstrating their motivation and eagerness to further contribute to our shared vision of economics and management education purposed for a sustainable world.