Happy (Transformative) 2013!

AAI fireworks 2Dear AIESEC alumni,

2012 marked the beginning of our collective transformation into a global alumni powerhouse that will connect one million alumni AIESECers with each other and with AIESEC in meaningful ways.

At our February AAIM in Hungary, alumni from around the world gathered to discuss a project entitled Unleashing AIESEC’s Global Alumni Potential. Developed by an international team of alumni of all ages and from all continents, based on input from hundreds of alumni and from nearly every national and regional alumni association, and featuring the participation and oversight of AIESEC, the work charted a course for AIESEC’s alumni future.  The team’s overall recommendations received near unanimous support and AAI’s new EB was given a mandate to carry them forward.

Following the Hungary meetings, an international team of volunteers has invested countless hours in 2012 to make this vision a reality, and workshop participants at our Moscow AAIM in August provided crucial input.  Some of the highlights so far include AIESEC Alumni First Thursdays (which is now connecting alumni and student AIESECers in dozens of cities across the globe each month); The AIESEC Leaders List (which has identified thousands of past AIESEC leaders around the world); extensive design and development work on our Global Alumni Hub (more on that in an upcoming post); the new AIESEC Alumni Internship Referral program (developed in association with AI to provide support to AIESEC’s bedrock Global Internship Program); and our increased coordination with AI (which has blossomed into a vital partnership, up to and including AAI’s participation on AIESEC’s Supervisory Group).

I have every confidence that 2013 will be the year that we connect our alumni with each other and with AIESEC on a large scale, leveraging our shared values, our deep skill sets, and our breadth and diversity. This will be the year that our investments come to fruition in a new web portal, through which we will make it easy for like-minded alumni to meet, find mentors and jobs, seek funding, market their services, support AIESEC and related causes, and have an impact!  This will be the year that we expand new certain grassroots programs such as A-Groups and International Startup Meetings.  Finally, this will be the year we strengthen our network of national and regional associations, harnessing synergies with AIESEC and among alumni entities at every level.

Our next checkpoint will be in AAIM 2013 in Novi Sad, Serbia, over 22-24 February 2013, where we will present a full update and have important organizational discussions about our programs and the role of regional structures in Europe and around the world. We urge you to attend this conference and to help write this next chapter in AIESEC’s alumni history!

We have many people to thank for their support in 2012, and while there are too many to mention all of them by name, I do want to call out former AAI President and longtime alumni leader Victor Loewenstein and his past EB team (many of whom remain actively involved in AAI); AIESEC International VPs Luca Keresztesi and Michaela Schedlingová and their respective AI teams led by PAIs Tatiana Mykhailyuk and Florent Mei Yi; AI Supervisory Group Chair Fernando Lanzer; AAI Congress Chair Akber Pandor; all 2012 AAIM team members and delegates in Hungary and Russia; our many friends and supporters in national and regional associations; and our extensive and growing roster of volunteer alumni, without whom very little would have been possible.

On behalf of AAI’s Executive Board, I extend our best wishes to all of you for a spectacular 2013.  Please join us for the ride (if you haven’t done so yet) and help us make our shared vision come true for alumni AIESECers everywhere!

AIESECly yours,
David Epstein
President,
AIESEC Alumni International

…with fellow AAI Executive Board members Arnould de la Boulaye,
Kuba Karlinski, Hiro Kinashi, Sudeep Malhotra, Andrew Rowe, Lionel Simons, Bernd M. Thomas and Jochen Wiegand.

One reply on “Happy (Transformative) 2013!”

  1. My very best wishes to all the AAI team!! I am sure that 2013 will continue to be an important step for our new era.
    Patty Ralston

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