Hey there! Erik here, happy that you take your time to read this.

I never thought I would end up in a student organisation, yet alone ESTIEM. In high school, my friends and I were the first to mock the “weird” kids that joined different associations. Little changed starting university as, believe it or not I was a highly ambitious student focused on my studies.

Till this day I am not sure why I in the end decided to hang out with the “interesting” individuals belonging to ESTIEM LG Göteborg, with their weird songs and silly purple overalls.

In the years since I first put on my once so purple and colourful overall, it has almost lost all its colour. It seems like a lifetime ago that I became the Local Responsible of my LG. Going from a nervous LR applicant to standing confidently and making 300 people listen to your every word. Going from being unsure about how to register LG members on the portal to being asked on advice on how to improve an international network. Finally, experiencing the people around you grow because of your friendship and time spent together might honestly be the best thing happening in my life so far.

Through my years as LR, RC, and Ambassador, through countless hours spent various projects for the network I have made friends, I have gone through deep personal hardships and I ( I like to believe) contributed in making the network a little bit better. Most importantly, I have become the man I am today. And boy am I glad I decided in the end to hang around and join ESTIEM!

Now, to finalize my journey in ESTIEM, to face my biggest challenge yet and to make this network a better place for all my dear ESTIEMers, I am applying for the position of President of the 34th Board of ESTIEM. Following this, I have written down some thoughts of the most important aspects for developing the network, in the position that I am applying for.

Members

As president, I want to bring my experience of working with LGs to look at how we as central ESTIEM take care of our Local Groups. I intend to reshape the Membership Regulations to be more tailored to the actual needs of the LGs. I aim to reshape the entities working with LGs to tackle the problems of the LGs more effectively.

Safety of ESTIEMers

During the recent year, our network started realizing that ESTIEM is not as safe of an environment as we thought, with several accounts of harassment coming to light. In a years’ time, I want to leave a network with members truly free from fear of being mistreated. That means introducing processes preventing misconduct but, most importantly, creating a system with a regulatory organ to judge reported misconduct and meeting the misconduct with consequences.

Central ESTIEM

For the last two years I have been an ESTIEM leader. While the experience has been rewarding for myself and for many others, there is more potential to it. I want to create engagement in our network, with the greatest focus on precisely our leaders. I want more opportunities for our leaders to share their ideas, to work together and to grow with the network. Be it creating more offline events to work and develop ourselves and our network or making time to work together and have bond online. Engaged leaders shape a developing network.

The Board

Asking old board members how they remember their board year we are met with happy memories and the occasional hardship mentioned. Reality is that the board year poses many challenges. Simply put, I do not want to see anymore board members ending up suffering from their year in the board. The need of running the network does not weigh more than the health of the individual ESTIEMer and I want to make sure that the future board members maintain healthy work/life balances. My idea is that if the activities of the network are too much for the board to handle, then the capacity of the board must be increased, or the activities held by the network need to be prioritized and put on hold.

These four thoughts are at the core of how I wish to develop the network.
With that said, my future work as a board member does not end on these ideas. If you want to hear more of my ideas, if you have any questions regarding my application, or if you wish to discuss your own ideas for the network don’t hesitate to contact me through e-mail at: erik.viktor.pymay.jasinski@estiem.org, or on WhatApp +46790737092.

In High ESTIEM,
Eryk Viktor Pymay Jasinski

“What is ESTIEM?”

We have all faced this question multiple times during our ESTIEM journey, either by our friends, family or random people. Although it seems like the easiest question ever, If you are like me, then you probably struggle to give an answer. Not sure if I should explain the concept of ESTIEM, how it works, the people I have met or simply how it makes me feel (or I could also just sing the ESTIEM song).

Before you continue, take a moment and think, “What is ESTIEM to me?”.

For me, I always think of our offerings and the opportunities that it provides. I think of all I have learned and all activities I have experienced.

When looking back I can recall how wrongly I perceived ESTIEM the first time I heard of it in 2019, or how naive I was when I joined my Local Group in 2020. I think of how amazed I was when I learned about the countless opportunities ESTIEM offered. I remember how nervous I was in my first ESTIEM events and how excited I was in my first team chat as a central team member. Since then, a lot has happened and João has changed (at least) a little. I have worked in a couple of different entities and different projects. I have had a few leadership positions both in the local group as in central ESTIEM and I have spent countless hours dedicated to the network.It has been an amazing journey of which I am proud, but there is still more to do, more to learn and more sunshine mountain to climb.

It is with a big smile that I present my application for Vice-President of Activities of the 34th Board of ESTIEM.

Our Activities represent to me the actual playground, our main offerings, the place where our students most develop and where we mostly connect IEM students with IEM Europe. It is crucial that our events provide value, have quality and really represent what ESTIEM is. This requires a lot of work and cooperation, so it’s important that this process is done efficiently and effectively.

If I get elected, together with co-boardies I would like to work on further developing the playground and make it a place where all students are welcomed and are motivated to join event after event.

I will achieve this through the following goals:

1.  Increase the Quality of our Activities so that we can better develop ESTIEMers personally and professionally as well as increase the retention in our activities:

• Bring Event Quality Committee closer to organizing LGs and service leaders (the main players responsible for event quality) to make knowledge sharing more direct and constant, so that the needs are better known and solutions can be provided.
• Increase the support that central ESTIEM provides to the organizing Local Groups, by improving the accessibility of existing resources and provide new resources to tackle the needs of the Local Groups.
• Increase the number of applicants across all events so that the quality of participants increases and consequently the overall event (more of that later). 

2.  Make ESTIEM activities more inclusive, so that ESTIEM can be a playground for everyone:

• Evaluate the current event portfolio and guarantee that ESTIEM offers sufficient value adding opportunities to all types of ESTIEMers, despite their preferences or experience.
• Make sure that the ESTIEM’s offers are communicated properly at the local level by improving our Public Relations and communication channels with Local Responsibles. This way, Local Groups (and ESTIEM) have the ability to gain the interest of a wider range of IEMers with all types of preferences and passions.

3.  Have a smoother event organizational process from a central and local perspective and make sure that everything is working effectively and efficiently.

As a Boardie, I would like to work on:

1. Rethinking the support given to the Local Groups, and rethink the role of the entities involved in this process.
2. Working closely with the departments and increasing cooperation inside them in order to stimulate innovation and added value.
3. Providing the needed support to our leaders and actives and ensuring their continuous development and constant motivation. 

So…”What is ESTIEM?”

ESTIEM can be a lot of different things, it is up to us to shape it, learn from it and use it as we wish. So what are we waiting for? Let’s get climbing the mountain. 

A big hug,
João Piçarra

joao.picarra@estiem.org
+351 927817424

In August 2019 a freshman heard an introductory presentation of some cool sounding European student network and decided to apply for an LG Exchange to Gdansk. Little did he know one trip to Poland wouldn’t be quite enough for him of the said network. 

Hello there, ESTIEMers,

This is Ari Hietanen speaking from LG Tampere and it brings me great pleasure to announce my application for the Vice President of Administration of the 34th Board of ESTIEM!

Indeed, all of us were freshmen at some point. My ESTIEM journey began with the said LGX to Gdansk in November 2019, during which I got to experience the fact that the whole of Europe was at our fingertips – not just our campus. I was immediately hooked, and while it took me till my 2nd year to gather my courage and apply, I soon became a member of our local board. During that year, I focused especially on the local activities, and for instance was assigned the responsibility to organize TIMES Local Qualifications in Tampere but also got to experience the Central side of ESTIEM via LXII CM online. The CM, while it was an info dump to somebody joining their third event, greatly broadened my horizons regarding the offerings of the network!

“Ah, so this is what the board does. Strategy, huh? Oh right, I think some people from our LG were in the Corporate Relations Committee and the Social and Environmental Responsibility Committee. Interesting!”

As my time in the local board of Tampere was drawing to an end, I realized Central ESTIEM provides great development opportunities also on the hard skills. As somebody majoring in information and knowledge management, who had heard many lectures about business intelligence, databases, analytics gap, and whatnot, I wanted to put some of that into practice while exploring the offerings of Central ESTIEM a bit further, and applied to the Analysis Committee via an Open Call. And oh boy was I not let down! The Liègendary AC Coordination Meeting in March 2022 was yet another turning point in my ESTIEM life and I left the AC CoM Liège with two thoughts: 

• “Oh wow! These people are super friendly. I wonder what the next generation of Central ESTIEMers is gonna be like?“
• “Dauymn, our data architecture is this advanced already? There are so many opportunities!”

To little surprise, I applied to be the leader of the Analysis Committee in July 2022. To a little bit more of a surprise, I also got selected. And that’s when the grind truly began. During my year as a leader I’ve worked in a tight cooperation with Knowledge Management and Event Quality Committees, as well as the IT Committee during the joint com with KMC & ITC in Ilmenau. Recently AC has also been working with the Human Resource Committee to improve the way the data about people working in Central ESTIEM is handled. For greater details on what we’ve done the past mandate, check Elium and stay tuned for more! During the mandate I’ve grown quite familiar with the processes of the administrative committees of the Central ESTIEM, and my background as a student of analytics, knowledge management and information systems adds a nice twist to my profile.

But what are my goals for the next mandate?

• Continue the development of Council Meetings and focus on ensuring safety and inclusivity of all participants, while also looking into streamlining the CM sign-up process.
• Support the Knowledge Management practices by
  • Increasing the accessibility of relevant information across the network via our WordPress website – Internal ESTIEM, once fully launched.
  • Assessing & supporting the handover process between leaders to ensure complete knowledge transfer.
  • Facilitating and encouraging communication & cooperation between leaders to increase knowledge sharing & informed decisions.
• Ensure the sustainability of the network’s IT Infrastructure & 
• Increase the Data Literacy of the network, starting with leaders, to get the true value out of our data analytics.
• Increase the cohesiveness of our Data Architecture to enable better metrics to monitor the state of the network and provide more interesting & useful information to the network!
• Work on improving the GDPR compliance of ESTIEM by assessing our current storing and use practices.

I’d like to underline that no boardie implements these changes alone. It’s the related committees that either make it or break it, so regardless of whoever gets selected as the VP of Admin, future committee members & leaders – I’m counting on you! In case you got any feedback or ideas you’d like to discuss with me further, please, approach me via WhatsApp, ari.hietanen@estiem.org or when I see ya somewhere in Porto!

In High ESTIEM, 
Ari Hietanen

It was my first year of university, and since we were in online time, I knew no one. Sitting in front of my computer, I was looking for a community where I could socialize and spend time. I heard about ESTIEM for the first time when I went to our Mother Organization’s introductory meeting. That evening, I took a seat and searched “ESTIEM” on the internet. I had no clue at the time that it would have such a significant impact on my life.

Dear ESTIEMers,

My name is Sude Çetinkaya, from Local Group Ankara-METU, and it is my greatest honour to present my application for Vice-President of Administration of the 34th Board of ESTIEM.

My ESTIEM journey started in November 2020 when I joined the TIMES local qualification organization team. After organizing local events and participating in central events like ESTIEM360, which gave me a broad overview of the network, I decided to look for a position at the Central level and applied for my first role in the Internal Awareness Task Group. While we were working on raising awareness of the ESTIEMers, I also discovered the magnificence of ESTIEM one more time and have been chosen as a delegate for the LXII Council Meeting.

Afterwards, I had the opportunity to work on the Event Quality Committee and Academic Development Department as a part of the Global Student Challenge team. Being Approaching Responsible for the Members Committee and developing strong bonds with Local Groups from my region while I was a regional team member made me realize how vital Local Groups are to our organization. As a result of this drive, I started my mandate as the Local Group Support System Leader and developed outstanding abilities to communicate the diverse needs of the Local Groups.

My interest in the knowledge management procedures at ESTIEM brought me to the Knowledge Management Committee, where I was given the opportunity to contribute as a Web Designer to the creation of the new Web Page. I could comprehend ESTIEM’s offers since I was a Sales Team Member on the Corporate Relations Committee and a member of the ESTIEM Hunt team. In addition, a new chapter in my journey as a trainer began after I attended the Training New Trainers event in Budapest, which taught me how to transfer my knowledge effectively.

Since my very first day at ESTIEM, I have made many lifelong friends, experienced new cultures around Europe, and developed various skills. All the people I’ve met and seen change inside of me day by day while also making an impact on the network have always inspired me. During my time here, the most important lesson I took away was to always aim high. On top of that, having worked in different entities and participated in more than 30 events, including 4 Council Meetings and several strategic events, I have decided to pursue one more year in the most strategic layer of ESTIEM.

Therefore, based on all my experiences and background, these are the goals I aim to achieve during the year:

● Raise understanding of the network on the topics covered during Council
Meetings by encouraging an open atmosphere and enhancing the engagement of Local Groups
● Encourage transparency and a sharing mindset while fostering a collaborative environment between Central entities and Local Groups by promoting the importance of communication channels to all members
● Establish a sustainable IT workforce while maintaining the IT Infrastructure and following the publication of the new Web Page, develop and implement a
comprehensive user experience
● Drive ESTIEM to GDPR compliance by reviewing and updating processes, as well as spreading information among the members and guiding Local Groups in adhering to GDPR
● Ensure that ESTIEM Knowledge is transmitted to all ESTIEMers by ensuring the visibility and accessibility of information.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to approach me via e-mail at sude.cetinkaya@estiem.org or in person in Porto!

In High ESTIEM,
Sude Çetinkaya

Dearest ESTIEMers,

My name is Marlene, I am a 22 year-old IEM student from Local Group Berlin and with great excitement I am applying for the position of Vice President of Education on the 34th Board of ESTIEM. I decided to not bore you with the story of how I ended up in ESTIEM, mainly because I don’t really have one. I just joined one day, stuck around and didn’t leave ever since, simply because I had so much fun doing the things that I did.

My time in ESTIEM started in April 2021 on the first day of my studies, where I became a very active member of my Local Group. A couple of months later I got elected as Head of Human Resources in our Local Board. This Local Board year especially helped me in my personal and professional development, since I had to juggle many different responsibilities at once and I learned a lot about teamwork, time management and how to motivate people for their tasks. 

After participating in several ESTIEM events, I started to understand the full potential and reach of our organisation. I was especially fond of the professional opportunities ESTIEM provides, which is why I happily took over the position as “Be X for X Days” Service Leader in the Career Development Department. Here, I improved my leadership skills and learned how central ESTIEM works, next to organising career events together with Local Groups. During this time I also worked on other tasks like the Career Website or Public Relations related content for the department and started to notice how interested I am in the educational side of ESTIEM. This is why I joined the Professional Development Committee as a team member, where I learned to understand the field of Industrial Engineering and Management even better and also had the privilege to observe the many different offers that ESTIEM provides to its members on the professional level.

I want to become the next Vice President of Education because I see so much potential in the studies of Industrial Engineering and Management. Due to my passion for ESTIEM, our studies and all the people that contribute to our amazing organisation, I would like to achieve the following goals next year:

• Use the full potential of IEM in our educational offerings by having a more diverse selection of event-topics through the usage of our collected data, to make sure that ESTIEM covers more fields of Industrial Engineering and Management in its offerings.
• Evaluate how our educational partners can help us complement the field of Industrial Engineering and Management and bring value to our members by having close contact and building meaningful partnerships. 
• Work on the visibility and recognition of the educational side of ESTIEM within our network by having an increased personal approach to our members and promoting more opportunities to be involved in this side of our organisation.
• As a member of the board I would like to dedicate time in the upcoming leaders generation and provide opportunities to work closely with one another by encouraging the communication between entities.

Please reach out to me, if you have any questions, concerns or doubts about my goals. I would love to hear different opinions from different people and it would contribute a lot to the ideas I have about the educational side and the general development of ESTIEM. 

See you all soon in Porto,

Marlene <3

(marlene.von.steinaecker@estiem.org)

Life-changing experiences. Wonderful people. Always aiming high.

These are the three main phrases that come to my mind when I look back on my ESTIEM journey. After almost 4 years of being a part of this amazing network, the life-changing experiences that have shaped me into the person I am today, the challenges that I have embraced and all of the wonderful people that I have met, all led me to this very moment. Taking the next step to pursue my biggest adventure yet, another milestone in my journey that I wouldn’t want to experience with anyone else than with you – my ESTIEM family. 

Dear ESTIEMers, 

My name is Alex Marita, I am from Local Group Xanthi, and it is my greatest honour to present to you my application for Vice President of Public Relations of the 34th Board of ESTIEM. 

My ESTIEM journey began in late 2019 when I attended my very first event, during which I had the chance to experience the ESTIEM spirit to such an extent that it only made me want to become even more involved in this organisation. Therefore, I became a part of the local Design Team and I started working actively on a local level. That was the reason why I decided to represent my Local Group as a delegate in the next Council Meeting and that was when the idea of joining Central ESTIEM came to mind. And so, I joined the Social and Environmental Responsibility Committee as a team member in three projects. 

In the meantime, my passion for Public Relations was constantly growing and so in late 2020 I was elected as the Vice President of Public Relations of Local Group Xanthi and held the position for one and a half years. Through that, I learned how to manage different teams and projects, as well as how to embrace challenges. Even though I have organised multiple events in my ESTIEM journey, the one that stands out is the first offline event after the pandemic, which was awarded as the best “Service Event of the year”.

My first experience with managing an international team started when I became the SER Tips Project Responsible in the Social and Environmental Responsibility Committee, where I also became familiar with Public Relations on the central level. A bit later I decided that it was time for me to pursue my love for Public Relations on a bigger scale, by becoming a member of the Public Relations Committee and holding multiple positions such as Central ESTIEM Manager and Branding Responsible. It was not long before I became the leader of the Public Relations Committee, a position that allowed me to obtain valuable skills, from crisis, project and team management, to adaptability and communication skills as well as discipline, and of course a strong sense of responsibility. 

While having worked in the area of Public Relations in different positions throughout my ESTIEM journey and having worked closely with the current Vice President of Public Relations in the past months, I feel qualified and eager enough to work on the following goals:

Ensure the integrity of the brand image of ESTIEM by:

• Maintaining and increasing the ESTIEM brand awareness: Developing and implementing PR strategies that target our stakeholders;
• Actively developing engaging content on all of our platforms that communicate the organization’s key messages and initiatives to a wider audience in Europe; 

Foster collaboration and benchmarking opportunities by:

• Maintaining and fostering a collaborative culture: Ensuring the continuity of and building stronger relationships with other student Non-Governmental Organisations; 
• Enhancing the benchmarking culture between Local Groups; 

Assist the network’s PR needs by: 

• Creating a stronger PR community by fostering relations among people who work in the PR field in all layers of ESTIEM;
• Organising more training opportunities in the area of Public Relations;

Expand the organization’s reach across Europe by:

• Increasing the reach and engagement of ESTIEM’s social media and digital platforms through the implementation of various PR strategies with the ultimate purpose to build a stronger online presence;
• Regularly evaluating and measuring the effectiveness of PR activities, by using data and analytics to support decision-making and optimize future PR strategies;

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding my application, please feel free to approach me via email at Alex.Marita@estiem.org or in person during Council Meeting Porto.

In High ESTIEM, 
Alex Marita

Dear ESTIEMers,

Everything started in a student council office in 2021 in Rijeka on a dull afternoon. On looking at how to bring new opportunities to students of my faculty and myself, I found myself on the ESTIEM portal. I was drawn in right away, and in a few weeks, I gathered a group of enthusiastic students and we applied to become a Guest Group in ESTIEM. After we were accepted into the network, I received an invitation to CM Seville for my first event to present Local Group Rijeka. Before attending this event, I was confident that my journey with student organisations was at an end, but, boy, was I wrong – it was just getting to its peak. 

In my first year in ESTIEM I was president of LG Rijeka, but due to my studies, moved to Local Group Zagreb. Additionally, I explored my interests in Central ESTIEM, working as a LinkedIn Manager in PRC before ending up as a Member of the Sales team in CRC. Working in previous organizations as a Sponsorship Marketing Leader, my heart found a home in CRC and Grants Committee – and later I became Leader of both!

I discovered that I genuinely enjoy leadership through my work in ESTIEM as the Grants Committee Leader, Corporate Relations Co-Leader and President of two Local Groups. I enjoy inspiring, educating, and assisting the members of my team(s), so I wish to assume a larger responsibility within this unique network as Vice President of Finance of the 34th Board. 

Why did I make this crazy decision? The true question for me is, “Why not?” If I have the chance to aim high, try something completely new, and challenge myself, why not? I see this as a chance to put the abilities that I’ve developed over the years in various student organizations and via my roles in ESTIEM to the test while contributing to the development of the network. Of course, the objective serves as motivation, but in this instance, the journey itself of achieving the goals in my mandate, if elected, will be the greatest part – and that’s why I find myself eager to make this step and why I am so excited about it. 

How do I plan to proceed with this crazy idea? 

• Centralizing corporate relations in ESTIEM for better promotion of all offers that ESTIEM can provide;
• Increasing knowledge of finances in ESTIEM that will provide transparency and accessibility to all ESTIEMers;
• Focusing on increasing income from grants and applying given feedback on ESTIEM’s contribution to the development goals of the European Youth Goals; 
• Making investments that would focus on participation of ESTIEMers in external events (such as conferences) to give more members the chance to represent our organisation;
• Supporting struggling Local Groups by investing in travels of Actives which will contribute to the internal growth of the network.

Not to bother you too much with written words, I am eagerly awaiting to present everything mentioned in more detail at Council Meeting Porto. Until then, feel free to email me at tina.mlinaric@estiem.org with any questions, concerns, opinions, or suggestions.

In High ESTIEM,
Tina Mlinarić