News and Cluster Activities
- Ms. Eva Irgl (the youngest female senator of Slovenia) is to Noushin's left and the three high-ranking Slovenian senators are on either side of Noushin
Slovenian authorities welcome EBBF member
Submitted by Noushin Ehsan
On October 25, 2006, I was a keynote speaker in an international conference in Ljubljana. The title of my talk was “Passion as an Engine to Creation,” where I emphasized spirituality as a guide to uplift the spirit of humanity and present images of Baha’i houses of worship as examples where through passion great architecture has been created.
In conjunction with my preparation, I read an interview with the President of Slovenia in the New York Times and was immensely inspired by his spirituality. In that article President Drnovsek, stated that he has found “a higher consciousness” and now wants to share what he calls his “positive energy” with the rest of the world. After reading the article, I wrote to the organizer of the conference and asked if their President could be invited to my talk. Instead the president invited me to meet him in his office. Unfortunately, the day before my arrival to Ljubljana I was informed that due to unexpected circumstances my meeting with the president was cancelled.
Even though my appointment with the President of Slovenia was canceled, after my lecture I was taken to the President’s office and met with Mrs. Kristina Plavsak Krajnc, MIA, advisor on Cooperation with NGOs. And there I left a note for the President.
“Dear President Drnovsek,
Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I am saddened that our meeting had to be canceled, and for the reason. Please accept my condolences on the loss of your pet companion. Your spiritual enlightenment and respect for life is admirable. I wish more leaders and politicians would adopt your philosophy. As an architect who has chosen to serve humanity through my profession, I am inspired by what I have heard and read about how you are approaching our shared goal."
Subsequent to this event I received the news and the pictures from the visit of their president to the Baha’i House of Worship in India.
After this meeting I was then invited to meet with four Slovenian Senators. Among them was Senator Eva Irgl, who I have become friend with in my previous travels in November 2005.
Presenting a people-centred economy
Submitted by Beppe Robiati
Rome, the Università La Sapienza, the round table organised by AIESEC titled "Emerging Markets: the new west?", over 50 students from the faculty of economics a few professors and invited guests from the world of business.
The moderator is the journalist Andrea Rustichelli of "Affari e Finanza" a well known Italian business newspaper. Amongst the invited speakers, prof. Giulio Querini di Economia dell'Ambiente, who talked about the economic growth of China, prof.ssa Elisabetta Basile di Cooperazione Internazionale who talked about the Indian phenomena, dott. Elefante from the accounting and consulting multinational PricewaterhouseCoopers, who offered problems and risks connected with investments in emerging markets and dott.ssa Sandra Luschi representing the European Bahai Business Forum, who presented a new world order vision connecting the social, economic and political aspects of globalization.
During her presentation a new perspective was offered, that of the EBBF vision that considers globalization as an opportunity to develop sustainable development.
This implied a re-definition of the term "development" from the traditional economic-materialistic concept of a few winners to the Universal House of Justice's document that states how the most important role that business should offer in development is that of offering individuals and institutions the means by which they can obtain the true objective of development, meaning the basis of a new social world order that cultivates the unlimited potentialities latent in the human conscience.
The new generations that attended the meeting were encouraged to create new development models, no longer based upon the supply and demand model but rather based on these new foundations putting people at the centre of their objectives, their soulds and the complexities of their relationships which constitute the social economic structure of the world.
The strongest positive reactions to this new model did not come from the academics but rather from the business representatives and from the managers and entrepreneurs of the future who attended the conference.
- Workshop at CBBF's inaugural event
Canadian affiliate of EBBF launched.
We warmly welcome the news of the recent launch of the Canadian affiliate of EBBF the Canadian Bahai Business Forum.
They opened in style with their first annual conference where Lawrence Miller was one of the keynoters giving a talk at this inaugural event titled "Competing in a New Capitalism: A Bahá'í Perspective on Organization and Economic Development,".
He explored how the worth of an organization is closely tied to the value it attaches to its individual employees, and how that value is indicated as much by the moral and spiritual direction of the workplace as its financial stability.
Questions posed include "How we think about what our businesses do is really important. Why are they there? What is important to the organization? Our concept of that really does matter because it affects how everybody thinks, feels, and acts in the organization,"
Failed economic systems of the past, like communism, Miller said, did not work because they overlooked the roots of human motivation.
Bob Willard, a consultant and author on corporate sustainability and the conference's other keynote speaker, discussed how ethical and environmental responsibility among corporations not only is critical to the well-being of the planet but can also strengthen a business' bottom line.
Willard is author of The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line and is on the advisory board of the Natural Step Canada, a charitable organization that promotes sustainable development in the economic sector.
- The elected Canadian board from left to right: Garth Schmalenberg, Wesley Gee, François Couillard, Samantha Fowlds and Nousha Etemad.
We wish this new development in this growing network of EBBF to fulfill its vision and to offer an important meeting point for like-minded individuals passionate about values interested in translating them into successful companies in Canada.
- Gary keynotes at the recent annual event in Estonia.
Treading new grounds in Ukraine and Estonia
Submitted by Gary Reusche.
Below is the impressive list of AIESEC related activities that Gary has developed in both Ukraine and Estonia.
2007-April (in progress): Regional CSR conference in Lviv, Ukraine. I worked with the local committee for the planning of this conference and will give the keynote speech at the conference.
- Gary Reusche presenting.
2007-Feb: External speaker at the “Entrepreneurship Day” in Parnu, Estonia. This was the last day of a combined CEEMOS (Motivational Seminar) and CEELDS (Leadership Development Seminar) conferences. (CEE=Central and Eastern Europe extending into Central Asia). I don’t have the final statistics but I think about 170 participants attended the “entrepreneurship day” from the two conferences, from about 17-20 countries. I prepared 2 lectures, both of which included 17 breakout groups (for small group discussions) followed by reports from the small groups. Each group had a “facilitator” to help with the discussion. One lecture/discussion focused on the idea of the entrepreneur as a visionary, where we primarily dealt with issues related to creativity, innovation and the development and elaboration of the business idea. The other lecture/discussion dealt with the issue of “building a business plan.” Perhaps I give you the PowerPoints and maybe some of the members will look them over and give some feedback/ideas for the future? I would like to get some more methods/instruments to help students of this age (19-22 years) develop their ideas for a small business.
2006-Dec working meeting with Slavik Lysak from the national committee. Helped to put together ideas for a CSR conference in spring 2007 with the American Chamber of Commerce. I’m trying to find out from the AmCham what is happening on this.
2006-Nov: Training in team building to the national committee of AIESEC in Ukraine.
2006-May to November. Values Assessment with Richard Barrett. 243 AIESECers took the assessment, including 37 alumni. The main result is that the organization shows good alignment of values, but that many of the organizational values of AIESEC are not appearing and that the “desired organizational values” are not the values that AIESEC is working to incorporate into the group.
2006-Feb (Kyiv, Ukraine). Delivered two lectures to a national conference. One on CSR, and the other on values. Approximate attendance: 50 each lecture
2005-Nov (Mariupol, Ukraine). Delivered two lectures to a national conference: Transforming the organizational culture: starts with leadership and The effect of Leadership on Organizational Culture. Approximately attendance: 100 each lecture.
Love in action in Naples
Submitted by Beppe Robiati
Naples is described as one of the most beautiful cities in the world and accepting the invitation of the Università Federico II di Napoli, to present on the theme of Corporate Responsability too good an opportunity to miss.
Other presenters included prof. Sergio Sciarelli, teaching “company ethics”, Alfredo Ferrante of the Ministry of Employment, Vittorio Acocella, organisational consultant and third sector expert and Gennaro De Concilio, a young Neapolitan entrepreneur member of the committee “Small enterprises agains racketeering”.
The moderator was Alfonso Ruffo, director of the business newspaper “Il Denaro”, who was present also with a cameraman and another journalist who produced an article that recently appeared.
The qualitative level of the seminar was very high and brought about the latest trends and ideas in this area of business responsibility development.
The interest is so high that this university will soon introduce in this faculty of economics a new course on Corporate Social Responsibility.
Particularly well received were EBBF's suggestions that a new spiritual holistic vision of business can and should be implemented translating it as “love in action”, in the search for global shared values to promote an effective ethical behaviour translated into organizational, productivity and sales improvements.
The challenge is to assign to the human being the central focal point in all endeavours and activities.
In this event EBBF, represented by Sandra Luschi, offered an innovative new vision of human resources handling and of the core concept of work. Starting from the key concept that each individual is a potential mine of gems of inestimable value."
A number of the participants had already read EBBF's ideas through EBBF's publications but once they heard those concepts live from Sandra the entire concept was brought to life under a new light.
