oikos Newsletter
June '15

be informed - get involved - make a difference

Dear Reader,

“Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care” proclaims the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to commemorate the World Environment Day on June 5, 2015. Let us raise the curtains to the June edition of the oikos newsletter with a pledge to contribute towards the responsible management of our environment. In this edition we announce the winners of this year's oikos Case Writing Competition and invite you to join and engage with the stimulating Learning Circles. Likewise, we are calling for fashionistas to showcase their management skills and lead the Fashion Supply Chain Learning Circle. In this edition the “30 Seconds with” feature Malvika Garg and the newly wed Raisa Adhikari from oikos New Delhi who share their experiences of organizing the Asia Meet 2015.
All these and a lot more coming your way this warm June, so go ahead and dig into it! 

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Re-thinking Sustaianability at the oikos Germany Meeting  
More than 45 oikos members from German speaking countries gathered in Leipzig at the oikos Germany Meeting 2015. The 2-day programme focused on rethinking sustainability and encouraged all participants to prepare workshops or discussions around the topic. Read more to see the result!

Become a Learning Circle Manager - Fashion Supply Chain
Interested in discussing a topic in the fashion supply chain and exchanging thoughts with an expert and other oikos members to understand how to make it more sustainable? If so, we are looking for you! At the FutureLab 2015 we will give you 5 hours of time to execute workshops that will enhance your knowledge on your chosen topic and understand other participants' points of view on it. We look forward to your email of interest at futurelab@oikos-international.org.

Shaping the oikos FutureLab 2015, continues...
With the first confirmed speakers, the FutureLab organisation is in full swing! Four Learning Circle Managers have committed to preparing inspiring workshops to make education matter! We are expecting to open applications to join the FutureLab in July (NB: it is an invitation only event). Stay tuned!


Join and Share an oikos Learning Circle!
  

Interested in finance, management education, economics, entrepreneurship, supply chain/fashion or energy? Then join the Learning Circle on topic of your interest. Make most of the opportunity to gain experience, knowledge and establish networks! If you wish to initiate a Learning Circle with an alternative topic, do not hesitate to contact us.

 

oikos Alumni

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Get involved!

Being actively part of the oikos alumni network offers plenty of opportunities! Check the oikos Alumni Kit  for learning how to get involved. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

 



Your feedback, ideas and suggestions

We have prepared a survey to gather your feedback and collect ideas and suggestions on how to serve you better in the future. Your ideas, remarks and questions are very important to us, so please take a few minutes to answer our questions. Click on the following link to start the survey.
 

 LinkedIn for Alumni
Are you an alumna/alumnus? Keep in touch via Linkedin.
 


 

oikos Academic

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Winners of this year's oikos Case Writing Competition!
Faculty from Portland State University, Rotterdam School of Management and IBS Hyderabad win first prizes in oikos Case Writing Competition. Congratulations! More information here.
 

Energy Academy Participants 
The oikos Academy "Managing the Transition to Renewable Energy - Towards a New Energy Paradigm" is on its way. On June 7 - 11, 14 young scholars will attend the Academy in Tel Aviv University, Israel. 
 Read more to see who was selected to participate!






Former oikos PhD Fellow Writes about Water Sustainability 
A former oikos PhD Fellow recently published a case study on water sustainability: 'The Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company'. Tim Lehmann writes about Kenya's development of new water resources and addresses a success story that provides Nairobi's residents with equal citizen rights. 


 Money out of Nothing

Mathias Binswanger is a Professor of Economics at the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz in Olten. Mathias has been an oikos Trustee for many years and just published a new book to add to his collection. "Money out of Nothing" sheds light on the often invisible banking system and its creation of money through lending. Professor Binswanger, further, highlights that most of the money created by banks today results in the purchase of securities, or other assets, which consequently generates speculative bubbles and financial crises.
 

 

30 seconds with...

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Raisa Adhikari and Malvika Garg, Chief Organisers, oikos Asia Meet 2015

Dear oikees,
It is indeed a pleasure and a privilege for us to share our experiences of organizing the Asia Meet 2015. The theme ‘Sustainable solutions to Urbanization’ was chosen because we believe that the challenges posed by growing urbanization are an emerging area of concern for policy makers and sustainability champions, alike. As our aspiration levels rise like a hot-air balloon, each and every activity that we engage in, to ‘improve our standards of living’- as we like to put it- is in some way or the other harming the natural eco-system and charging it to take a toll on us. As budding leaders of tomorrow, we at oikos New Delhi strongly believe that it is our responsibility to mitigate the impact of detrimental human activities by adopting sustainable growth plans after careful evaluation and selection. Hence, we thought that the theme would be apt for this Asia Meet as it intends to educate us on how development through urbanization can be promoted in a sustainable manner.

The preparations for the meet had begun in full swing with much excitement and zeal, about 3 months before the big day. We have to admit that planning an event of such proportions was indeed a challenge, one that we treated as an opportunity to refine our event management skills. We drew upon some basic guidelines from previous Asia Meets and the Spring Meeting that just preceded Asia Meet 2015 and put in dollops of local Delhi flavor to it. Selection of the venue and getting the due approvals for hostels was a major constraint turning into a lengthy and tedious process. However, it turned out that our Dean really liked the idea and allowed us to conduct the event in our campus. It was a major breakthrough for us. We have to thank Mr. Ankit Agarwal, who had charted a roadmap to ensure that everything flowed smoothly on the ground. The last day of the meet had been reserved for ‘Delhi Darshan’, a tour of the historic city, which required us to strategically select sites from a large number of heritage sites to be visited within a jam-packed schedule. Not to forget, the food menu was carefully chosen each day keeping in mind the unique culinary preferences of participants who had come to attend the meet from across the globe. We do hope all the participants had a memorable yet learning experience at the meet and that we fulfilled our role as ambassadors of Delhi to the best of our abilities. On behalf of the entire oikos New Delhi team, we would like to thank Anita and Ankit as well as all the participants and speakers for helping us make the meet a resounding success.
 
We have now transferred the leadership of oikos New Delhi to a new, motivated team and look forward to contribute as alumni. The New Delhi chapter now aims to spread it’s footprint to other institutions in the city to engage more sustainability conscious citizens in our initiatives. We shall soon be conducting some recruitment drives to spread awareness about the oikos community. We also look forward to partner with organizations that are working in the same field to add to our projects and get some hands-on experience about it. We hope that in the coming days, New Delhi get more such opportunities to expand and explore.

Cheers,

Malvika & Raisa