The date 2 July 2012 marked the official start of the long-awaited IB World Student Conference in Segovia, Spain. The morning began with greetings from Salvador Carmona, IE University President, Jeffrey Beard, IB Director General, and Adrian Kearney, IB Africa, Europe, Middle East Regional Director . Keynote speaker Houston Spencer and Lotfi El Ghandouri had the students on their feet with their inspirational speeches! Lorinda Hamilton, IB Middle Years Programme and Diploma Programme Coordinator, at WB Ray High School, Corpus Christi, Texas, USA, was especially impressed by Houston Spencer. “[He] was phenomenal. All of the students said they are very amped up not only about their Diploma Programme, but also their projects for the week. It really helped the students get outside of themselves and become that caring person we want them to be and that it’s doable at any age”.
In the afternoon, students were split up into their Global Action Teams where they began developing their group dynamics through a team-building activity as a part of the design thinking methodology process. These exercises will become more important throughout the week as the students solve problems and work on their projects together. These projects will be presented later on.
Manjot Kaur (http://manjot013.blogspot.com/) from Gar-Field Senior High School, Virginia, USA, talked about her group’s success in her blog. “Our first activity was about how we can make our peers’ experience here better and my group made an advertisement about personalizing our name tags so that people can see what we like to do. I think my group has many ideas that once put together will make a change in the way people perceive things and maybe change their paradigms and have a better view of issues around the world”
- One of the Global Action Teams working hard!
After an exciting day, students were able to interact with IB staff and explore Segovia and its beautiful landscape.
- Paul Sanders, IB Global Head of Recognition, and students enjoy dinner
We are glad to see everyone has arrived at the conference safely, and we only hope for the continuing success of the conference! Keep us updated through your blogs, Facebook (facebook.com/ib.recognition) posts and Twitter #IBWSC12!
Thank you for the lovely setting and for a chance to see youth leadership in action. A special thanks to Texas IB Schools (TIBS) for sponsoring two of my students at the IBWSC. I can´t wait for the next level of learning for students and adults alike.
I was one of the students from CSM, and I rellay want to thank the DesignStudio for hosting us. I was rellay inpired by your presentation, the projects, the way the designers think and most of all, for the passion that they talk about it.