oikos Kolkata organized the annual Asia Meet with a single objective to keep the topic of sustainability alive among students and push them towards thinking on the sustainable future. With this view in mind, all the events centered around discussing and putting forward ideas for a better future – be it the National Case Competition or the Sustainable Marketing Competition, where participants solved real-world problems to address the issue of sustainability in business or the Pitch Your Idea event that aimed to bring together foreign exchange students from IIM Calcutta to share their views on a sustainable future. The Design thinking workshop was organized to promote social entrepreneurship among students and welcomed over 60 participants. A former World Wildlife Fund employee, who is currently a student at IIM Calcutta, presented her work on wildlife from the northeastern part of India in a documentary. Events like Toastmasters and debate pushed students to voice out their opinions on some of the most pressing issues of our times. Finally, the event Sandharran, an art display competition, examined the meaning of sustainability through the medium of paintings, photographs, and poems.

Over 100 students actively participated in these events and reminded themselves that they have a much bigger responsibility towards not only humanity but the entire planet.

Dear oikos community,

What a turbulent month since we came together to celebrate the FutureLab in Geneva and became part of the new oikos international board. When thinking back, we still can feel the ambition and excitement in the room and we are really grateful for your trust and great commitment.

But who are actually the persons behind the superficial presentations you listened to?
Well, there’s CLEMENTINE, the mother of the household who’s burning the midnight oil; ALEXIS, the master of time, creating her own time zone while being omnipresent in all oikos communication channels; JAKOB who best knows how to keep the balance between cutting the corners and the costs while hitting the roads of France with his bike; BENOIT, the charismatic nurse for the elderly oikees who brings a lot of experience and innovative insights; SOPHIE, the silver lining of our team and eyes, voice & heart of the chapters and regions; WYATT, the strategic mastermind with a heart and a soul of gold; SARAH, who holds all oikos projects in her 20 divine hands and knows how to shift perspectives along the way; and EVA, hitting every nail on the head with her enthusiastic passion for moving oikos to the next level. There’s even more info available, right here: https://oikos-international.org/board/

And why did the individuals who make our team decide to join the oikos Board?

This is an easy fix: We are driven to be involved in oikos international as we carry oikos’ purpose and mission in our hearts and agree that they are a powerful means of contributing to a more sustainable world. Empowering student change agents and raising awareness for sustainability out of several different perspectives seem powerful tools – and our organization acts on it with a rich portfolio of chapter activities, international projects and inspiring personal stories. Last but not least, we also sense the need of  a transformational change in curriculum and we are more than proud to observe the power of our community in this field, for instance in the curriculum project which was launched during the FutureLab. oikos is close to our hearts and we are passionate about our community, about you out there – that’s why we decided to also put in a good amount of our time and brains 😉

What do we want to reach as a team and for the community? What do we consider the main objectives for oikos in 2019?

We wish to empower and involve the oikos community on a more direct and emotional level, enabling the organization to act as a whole and to be inspired by each other. One example is a new decision-making process: we now need your opinion in order to make far-reaching decisions! Furthermore, we want to strengthen the network by giving space for a new structure that is currently under development by the ReStructuring Working Group (YEHAA!). In other words: one goal is to improve community interaction & knowledge exchange. Be assured that we will also contribute with our knowledge with interactive toolkits and webinars on topics like self-management or marketing.
But 2019 is also asking for a revision of our projects – in order to fit our needs, goals, mission, and vision, to be up to date at the pulse of time. The high turnover of personnel leads to many open positions – especially regarding the project heads. Maybe you can be the one who steps into this beautiful opportunity and makes some magic happen?

Usually, every NGO sees itself confronted with a more or less tight budget constraint, which is particularly true for us these days. We, therefore, need to center around the task of easing this constraint as much as possible, so that we can continue with our inspiring gatherings, vision-related programs and new campaigns! In this regard, it is particularly motivating to be part of a communal effort within this unique team – we give our best to get this done. In the medium-run, you can also expect advice to support you on your chapter-related fundraising (ultimately, our work is all about you!).
Getting ready for these stormy days, we are now in the process of establishing a more efficient and coherent Information Infrastructure. The need was there for a long time – we’ll now take over and simplify things, help with a clear overview and archive stuff that doesn’t suit the organization any longer.

There are exciting oikos times ahead and we all look forward to making things happen – with you as the main actors. We are proud of you and believe in our collective potential to become and inspire the change agents of our days. Let’s move on and get this going – together!

Have a great Christmas holiday & watch out for more news to come.
See you in Belgrade,

Clementine, Alexis, Wyatt, Sarah, Jakob, Ben, Eva & Sophie

“It is our choices, Harry, that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities” – and thus Professor Dumbledore gave Harry his first Transpersonal Leadership advice.

Indeed, our choices shape us and the world we live in, but how do we reach decisions? What do we consider and what should we consider in order to make the right choices? And how should we lead in order to render the right decision-making possible?

These are some of the questions tackled in our webinar on Transpersonal Leadership. John Knights, our invited speaker, an international thought leader, and coach explained: “Transpersonal Leaders operate beyond their ego, continuing personal development and learning. They are radical, ethical and authentic while emotionally intelligent and caring. They create performance-enhancing and sustainable cultures.” John asserted that Transpersonal Leaders think of benefits their decisions have on stakeholders, not on their own ego and defined ego as “a part of our self that is based on our self-image and only interested in our own personal benefit.”

Having an ego is not a bad thing, it does not make us malevolent, but we should learn to manage it and understand what drives it. Is it power, prestige, recognition or reward? For the participants of the webinar, power was of no interest, while 87% considered that recognition was the key force behind their ego. The LEAPers also thought that the biggest challenge in their work would be climate change while identifying community and planet as the most important stakeholders in a commercial business. John was taken aback when he learned about the responses – it was so different from what leaders in big corporations pointed out. There we come, the generation of sustainable leaders!

But as John pointed out everyone has 2 or 3 behaviors they need to change in order to become better leaders of tomorrow. Leaders need to be empathetic and understand other’s emotions and strive to create a climate that establishes a performance-enhancing culture. However, it’s not enough, in order to become a truly Transpersonal Leader, people need to get in touch with their values and identify their purpose.

To the LEAPers, the webinar gave an insight into how one can become a radical, ethical and authentic leader.  It also challenged our speaker by demonstrating how young people think about the business world and how important environmental and social considerations are for them.

About the speaker

John Knight is a Co-founder and Chairman of LeaderShape. He is an international thought leader in the development of leaders and an experienced coach, mentor and facilitator of individuals (especially Chairs, CEOs and senior managers), teams and peer groups. John is a co-author of  Leading Beyond the Ego: How to Become a Transpersonal Leader. White papers in the Transpersonal Leadership series are available here.

On the weekend of 16th to 18th November, French-speaking members and alumni from oikos Lausanne, St Gallen, Reims, Brussels, Leipzig and Moscow gathered in Lausanne for the third edition of the Francophone meeting, to discuss sustainability and innovations in agriculture and the food supply chain.

Aurélien G. Démaurex, CEO of Ecorobotix, presented the challenges of modern-day weeding. His company makes small robots that target weeds locally using complex algorithms. They reduce the number of used chemicals by 90%, and avoid soil compacting, unlike big agricultural machines. The founders of New Roots explained how they use traditional cheese-making processes but with plant-based resources in order to make cheese without animal sources. They use cashews as the main ingredient and obtain higher yield compared with the cow’s milk. They talked about the sustainability aspects of these two kinds of milk and presented us the techniques used to mitigate their carbon footprint in the process. The presentation ended with a tasty degustation.Participants took part in a workshop with Sascha Nick, CEO and founder of CO2-monitor, where they calculated the energy requirements of the food they consume and how to reduce this amount. The presenters inspired the participants but were also challenged with critical questions during the Q&A sessions.  The founders and key members of oikos Lausanne, as well as the Executive Board of oikos International, presented the oikos alumni network. They reminded the participants how valuable the alumni are and emphasized the importance of contributing to these community.

Then the oikees visited the UNESCO Heritage site of the Lavaux vineyards, viewed in its full splendor during the sunset walk. They were greeted by winemaker Pierre Fonjallaz at his home, where he produces wine using biodynamic methods. They learned about the principles of biodynamic farming, which is a more developed version of organic farming. His philosophy is that he should not stimulate nature to overproduce, even though this means incurring some losses in certain seasons.  For him, it is necessary in order to reach a more sustainable world. The discussion was followed by a wine tasting.

It was a weekend full of interesting discussions, developing and reinforcing relations between the chapters and sharing ideas and a good time!

oikos is a dynamic place that welcomes students from all walks of life. As a student’s university life inevitably comes to an end, so should their time as active oikos member. But for many of our former members, the bond they create with the organization and fellow oikees is too strong to be merely forgotten. oikos Alumni take part in our international activities as participants and speakers. Often, they get together in the informal setting to discuss their favorite topic of sustainability and reminisce about their time at oikos.

Recently, oikos alumni met in Brussels on December 3rd, in Zurich on November 23th, in Vienna on November 20th and in Basel on November 11th.

If you are one of our alumni and want to reconnect with our community, get in touch with Benoit Pitsaer, oikos Vice President responsible for alumni at benoit.pitsaer@oikos-international.org or alumni@oikos-international.org

Keep an eye on alumni developments here