Europe Youth to Business Forum

On Monday, April 17th, 2014, I was one of five Americans to attend the Europe Youth to Business (Y2B) Forum in Warsaw, Poland. The event was hosted by AIESEC International with support from AIESEC in Poland to provide special guest panelists as well as some of our AIESEC's international partners to start up a global conversation about youth unemployment. Many of the conversations were tailored specifically to the current situation in Europe, where unemployment is causing protests and revolts in many EU countries. With this being said, it was easy to take key learning points from the discussions we had and see how they can be applied to the current reality in the US as well.

The first half of the morning consisted of two panel discussions with various guests being asked the hard questions by youth leaders from around the world. For this portion of the day, I decided to do some live tweeting in order to collect as much of these speaker's wisdom as possible. Take a look at some of the highlights of the panel discussions!

The second half of the day was devoted to us answering those tough questions. I attended two workshops, one with TATA Consultancy Services and another with Intel. The purpose of these workshops were to learn how our partner companies solve real-world issues, so that we can use AIESEC to solve the international problem of youth unemployment. It involved a lot of working in small groups and brainstorming possible solutions.

After a long day devoted to problem solving and thinking bigger than just ourselves, I left the convention center exhausted, but inspired to continue this conversation. Before I attended the Europe Youth to Business forum, I can't say I ever really thought much about global youth unemployment. Of course, I've stressed out about finding a job after college and being able to support myself as I step into the real world, but this issue is so much larger than that. I am thankful for this experience and for the chance to hear how some of the smartest business people in the world think this issue can be solved.