“I commend the members of AIESEC for working to help our country maintain its competitive edge. I salute your efforts to promote greater international understanding and cooperation.”
George Bush, Former President of the United States of America
About AIESEC
In the United States, the forums for accomplishing our aims are our “local communities”. Across many States in America, “local communities” provide a diverse environment for individuals to learn about different cultures, develop new skills, and achieve personal goals through the unique opportunities we make available. Our local communities include individuals seeking cultural awareness, exchange participants on a traineeship assignment in the U.S., and student leaders who are working to further AIESEC’s mission. AIESEC alumni, sponsors, and partners also enrich the community through their support of the organization’s activities.
Our PlatformThe AIESEC platform consists of a number of different opportunities through which an individual creates their own AIESEC experience. This same platform also serves to connect our partner organizations to the talented young people within AIESEC. The main opportunities of the platform are working abroad, learning networks, leadership experience, conferences, and supported self-discovery.
Together with the principles of the AIESEC Approach, this platform is how we give young people the desire and capacity to have a positive impact on society – that is the AIESEC Difference.
Working Abroad – the opportunity to work abroad is the defining element of the platform and is the most intense experience we offer. We enable about 3,500 members to work abroad each year in fields of management, technical, education, and development.
Leadership Experience – through the management of over 1000 offices at the local, national, and international level, we provide about more than 6,500 leadership opportunities to our members each year. This provides our members with valuable and practical experience in both hard and soft skills in management and leadership.
Conferences – we organize approximately 350 conferences each year to train and develop our members. These conferences provide the opportunity to practice leadership, gain important trainings, and develop a network.
Learning Networks - through virtual and physical interaction, learning networks enable different stakeholders to come together to develop their skills, knowledge, and networks on topics of interest. Examples of learning network topics include Sustainability, HIV/AIDS, and Entrepeneurship.
The majority of our partner organizations engage with AIESEC through one of these platforms in order to increase their profile, attract top talent to their organization, or to support our efforts in enabling young people to develop and discover their potential.
AIESEC HistoryWhat began in 1948 as an organisation to help develop "friendly relations" between member countries is now a global association with activities in 89 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 and later in 1949 at the Stockholm Congress.
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 Programme 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 Responsability 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.
Looking for more relevance, nowadays AIESEC is the international platform for young people to discover and develop their potential. Our innovative approach to developing young people focuses on taking a proactive role, developing self-awareness and a personal vision, building networks, and developing capacity to drive change. We do this through an international platform of opportunities that provides over
6,500 leadership opportunities, 4,400 work abroad opportunities, 350 conferences, and virtual tools to build networks