Emerge Conference 2008

Whilst the world economy is suffering from the financial and realty crisis in 2008, the growth engines in Eastern Europea continue to run well. However, there is high inflationary pressure, and trade balance deficits have to be financed with monies from abroad.

Big differences between regions
In addition, there are great differences between individual countries and regions both in terms of the economy and in political and cultural terms. These fields of tension provide the starting point for the Emerge Conference.

In workshops, panel discussions and papers, companies such as Unicredit Group, Ernst&Young, The Boston Consulting Group and M&M will discuss the challenges of Eastern Europe with participants. For this purpose, the program has been divided up into four thematic blocks, namely Politics, Industry, Sales Markets, and Energy and the Environment.

Differing viewpoints
Political organizations such as the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the EU’s Ambassador to Switzerland, Michael Reiterer, and NGOs such as the WWF and the International Labour Organization (ILO) will enrich the conference through their differing viewpoints.

About a hundred students from Swiss and European universities will participate, and participation will also be open to representatives of companies. “Emerge” is taking place for the second time in 2008 as a consequence of the favorable feedback after the last conference; it is being organized by six students from AIESEC and the University of St.Gallen.

AIESEC has 23,000 members at 1100 universities, which makes it the world’s largest student organization.