What would you highlight from your experience at the conference?

Ibone: First of all, the topic of the conference and the speakers. It was about social business leadership and all the speakers were outstanding business people who had become aware of the need to give back what they had learned to society. Now they work on improving the world. Secondly, the chance to meet students from many different universities who share the same interests and initiatives that we are trying to implement at our University.

Amaia: I especially liked the conference by Scott Budnick, the founder and president of the not-for-profit organization Anti-Recidivism Coalition. He is a film producer who started doing very important work in the area of the social reinsertion of prisoners after working on the movie The Hangover. In his conference, he showed that anyone has the power to make change happen. It’s in our own hands whether we do it or not.

 

What motivated you to go to the conference?

Ibone: Mainly the topic of the conference, since it was about leadership and entrepreneurship, which are subjects that motivate me personally, but in this case there was also a focus on the social aspect, which is not common. The chance to meet students from the best universities and business schools was also very interesting.

Amaia: I’m very interested in all things related to leadership. And the conference was about leadership united with the social aspect, dealing with people, which is something I’m also very passionate about, like human resources and coaching. I saw that I had a chance to attend and I thought, ‘Why not give it a try?’

 

What ideas did you bring back with you?

Ibone: To have a positive impact on society, all you need is the desire to do it, but it’s necessary to be well trained to be able to increase the impact you can make.

Amaia: I learned that we all have the chance to change the world.

 

What can you say about the universities you learned about?

Ibone: Diversity. Some of them are similar to the University of Navarra in size and values. Others are huge public schools (as many as 50,000 students) and in highly dispersed areas. All of them have very interesting classes and one of the most typical features of some universities was the system of student-run clubs. 

Amaia: There were all kinds of universities, though most of them were from the United States. We all had the chance to introduce our university to those attending the conference. I was surprised by the second-year internships offered by the University of Frankfurt and some other very original initiatives. At Clarkson University, in upstate New York, all the students have to run the marathon at some point in their studies.

 

What did you say about the University of Navarra in your introduction?

Ibone: I spoke about the Degree Programme in Economics and Leadership and Governance, since I’m a member of the first graduating class, and about its challenge programme and the Integrated Project. I focused on the Integrated Project because it’s something the whole class works on together with complete freedom in terms of planning and execution. It’s a practical way to apply what you’ve studied as a way of exposing yourself to situations and problems that students in other degree programmes don’t come up against. This encourages you and even forces you to leave your comfort zone and acquire useful skills. Because it’s such an open exercise and so unusual, with so many students participating, many of the students from American universities at the conference were surprised and came up to me later to ask me how it worked. They wanted to see pictures.

Amaia: I gave a short presentation on the University, including its position in the rankings and things like that, and I focused on the IESE Business School programme offered by the School of Economics and Business Administration. The programme enables Economics students and students in the Double Degree in Management and Law to study for one semester at IESE and attend classes and apply the case study method typical of business schools.