As another year is winding down to an end, we take the time to look back and reflect on everything we’ve done in 2024. It was a turbulent year of transition at oikos in which we are proud to have made a great impact working together with our community and partners on exciting projects. Here’s what it looked like:
January
The year kicked off with exciting collaborations with the New England Impact Investing Initiative (NEIII) and UNPRME – Principles for Responsible Management Education in creating the Impact Investment Fellowship and the new cohort of LEAP Researchers respectively. The Impact Investment Fellowship saw its first-ever cohort launch in January with 46 fellows who embarked upon their 5-month-long journey to better understand the impact investing and sustainable finance sectors. This month oikos co-presidents together with oikos St. Gallen representatives joined the World Economic Forum in Davos as speakers, representing our Community at the PIR Summit ‘Business Education for a Better World’ focused on challenges in educating responsible leaders.
February
As the fellowship picked up the pace, in February we opened one of its sessions to the public, attracting a wider audience and bringing them loser the topic. The online event called ‘Just money’ featured Kathrin Kaufer, a prominent expert in the field and an author of the book with the same name as the event. During this we had much of hard work happening behind the scenes with our project teams setting everything up for the upcoming months and recruiting participants for the International Chapter Conference and the Rite of Passage event.
March
Our community came together in Barcelona at the International Chapter Conference (ICC) from 14 to 17 March. The Conference brought together local students and experts with the oikos students and alumni from around the world and provided a space for exchange on the topic of sustainable cities and communities. Based around the SDG 11 at the center, we saw a diverse crowd with everyone bringing in their own perspectives derived from local contexts and professional backgrounds. It was especially important for our Alumni community who co-created a dinner event, setting foundations for a strong bond within oikos Community between both present and past student members.
April
The biggest cohort yet of our Leadership program LEAP kicked off in April, paving the way for the 9-month-long personal development journey for the 64 participants taking part in the LEAP Researchers 2024. This was made possible thanks to the collaboration between oikos and UNPRME, which resulted in a very diverse cohort of masters and PhD students as well as early career researchers and university teachers and professors from all continents. On 21 April we hosted the first Legislative Meeting of the year where oikos Chapters representatives voted Patricija Zyzite as the new oikos International co-president for 2024 to 2026.
May
May marked the successful completion of the first Impact Investing Fellowship cohort and as the participants received their certificates, they were eager to share their fellowship stories and the learnings they took away from it. We invite you to read them here.
June
The highlight of June for our organization was our participation at the Urban Future 2024 conference which took place in Rotterdam. Our partners from UF invited us to host a workshop session based on our LEAP Leadership Program. It was a great opportunity to showcase the innovative approach of our program by applying it to a diverse crowd of people at a high-level conference, most of whom were unfamiliar with it. We were delighted to see that there was a high demand to attend our session along with curious engagement from those who managed to secure their place in time, as we received a lot of positive feedback. With that in mind, we’re happy to announce we will be returning to UF in 2025 – so stay tuned for more information! In the meantime, if you’re thinking of participating – you can get a 20% discount for tickets until the end of December by using the code ‘PARTNER20’.
July-August
The hot summer months were the time for a well-deserved rest for our community, but was also the time for more collaboration with our partners. Together with Bold Move International, we have made possible for the oikos Community to take part in their ‘Speakers@Work’ training in public speaking for free. We were also represented at the ‘UNESCO Chair: Co-designing the Future of Learning with Youth’, with Michael Winter, one of oikos Co-presidents, as a panelist. Following the successful pilot, NEIII launched applications for the next cohort of the Impact Investing Fellowship to take place in fall, supported by oikos.
September
Once again the Impact Investing Fellowship hosted an open-to-public introductory event called ’Intro to impact Investing’ featuring professor Carlos Vargas from Harvard University. In September World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) Switzerland, our long-time partners had published their report titled ‘Embedding Sustainability into Economics and Business Education’. oikos co-presidents contributed to it in writing the editorial, while one of our chapters, oikos St.Gallen had the role in surveying students’ perspectives on the matter.
October
The second Legislative Meeting of the year once again took place online in October, with oikos Community coming together to elect the new oikos International Board for 2025. Five amazing members were elected representing the diversity of our Community – get to know them here.
November
November was an active month for our community. Starting off with Alumni, the launch of oiConnect platform – an easy way for alumni to connect with the oikos community, developed together with our engaged alumni members. oikos Consultancy, once an oikos squad turned its own organization, hosted an Impacthon bringing together oikos Community in Graz for a_. This month we also launched LEAP Researchers crowdfunding campaign to support further development of the program. Finally, with COP29 taking place, we saw some of our Community members participate onsite in Baku – read about them here.
December
What’s happening now? Well, we’re already hard at work in preparing an exciting 2025 with opportunities to engage with oikos Community. The time and place are set for the next ICC in Warsaw, so make sure to keep it in your calendar, as we would love to see you join and experience the one-of-a-kind atmosphere. Don’t forget about the Urban Future 2025 which will also take place in Poland, precisely Lodz and make sure to use the ‘PARTNER20’ code if you’re booking tickets in December! There is some more exciting news coming your way in the upcoming months, so stay tuned!
Thank you for your incredible support this year and we wish you all the best in 2025!
