A Learning Organization, Aiesec

AIESEC

AIESEC history

What began in 1948 as an organization to help develop "friendly relations" between member countries is now a global association with activities in 91 different countries and territories.

The founding members of AIESEC started to build the organization between 1946 - 1948, but a clear identity was defined in 1948 89 students participated in the Exchange Program in 1949 and Exchange was defined as the core activity of the organization.

In the coming years more and more countries joined the network and AIESEC became global in a very short period by being present on all the continents.

The number of students and organizations involved in the exchange program grew rapidly and constantly, reaching 2467 exchanges by the end of 1960 and 4232 by the end of 1970.

Seminars were first introduced as part of trainees' reception experiences, in a proposal from AIESEC in Germany in 1961. It was well received by other countries, and a general set of seminar topics to be addressed was proposed and accepted. They were mainly economic in nature, and for the first time AIESEC was addressing specific issues in its activities-stated clearly in a non-political way.

At the 1974 International Congress in Bordeaux, an important motion was passed: the minimum length of an Exchange traineeship had to be 6 weeks. This measure improved the quality of our Exchanges.

In 1976 an International Theme Program was established that focused all international, regional, and local seminars on specific topics. This idea continued and grew through various stages.

After this the focus of the organization was on addressing global themes besides the traditional Exchange Program. Themes like International Trade, Management Education, Sustainable development, Entrepreneurship and Corporate Responsibility were discussed at local, national and global seminars.

In the late 90's the discussion about the relevance of the organization brought the Exchange Program on the main agenda and more and more effort was put in ensuring growth in this area.

Information systems were developed to make the process faster and easier. Insight I was launched in 1997 and Insight II in 2001. As the focus of the organization was the eXchange program again, the number of exchanges started to grow.