Power of Self Confidence and Networks
“I never used to see myself as a business person, but the GE Foundation Scholar-Leaders Program inspired me and gave me enough self confidence to start my own company, making software for some very big clients. It really changed my mind set,” said Tomas Kaczmarczyk, student in mathematics from Poland and one of the speakers at the 10th anniversary of the GE Foundation’s university scholarship program.
Eight Hungarian winners of GE Foundation Scholar-Leader program
The milestone was celebrated with a four-country multi-stakeholder conference, in Budapest on July 9. It highlighted the importance of collaboration between business, government and the academia on a regional basis to develop a new generation of future leaders who can make a difference in CEE. 70 current and alumni students participated at the event together with rectors of various universities and representatives of GE and the Institute for International Education (IIE) which manages the scholarships. The Hungarian Minister of State of the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice Dr. Zoltán Kovács and US Ambassador in Hungary Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis addressed the crowd.
Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis speaking at the conference
Zoltán Kovács underlined the importance of establishing a tradition of sharing knowledge and experiences with international partners.
György Zolnai, President & CEO of Budapest Bank, emphasized the value of the program from a business perspective. These scholarships are “filling a gap” and are “an investment in the future,” he said. In ten years, 430 students have been taking part in the program, GE leaders donated 2,500 volunteer hours and the GE Foundation has invested nearly $2 million. No wonder Agnes Vajda, director of IIE, proudly called the scholarship program “truly unique” and “very exemplary.”
Please watch a video of the 10th anniversary below :
Read an English summary on the event at the government’s website.
Have you ever participated in a scholarship that changed your life? Share your experience in comment.
Sign of Hope
A philanthropy program like this, a social innovation, is a great effort of many. The secret of making a difference in the leadership supply of a region, lays in collaboration of many people across sectors for the same cause.
Thx to all who contributed to the 10th anniversary of the regional GE Foundation Scholar-Leaders program. And to those who have been donating their time to share their experience and knowledge with the 430 students over the course of this decade.
Who do we talk about? The list is impressive:
Let’s start with the hundreds of GE executives, managers as volunteers and external speakers, CEOs of companies, US Ambassadors, AmCham executives, Ministers of respective countries and Fulbright executives. Thanks to you all.
And thx to the media as this program has been covered in top tier media in the four countries some 800 times.
Thx to Bob Corcoran and Krista Bauer from the GE Foundation as they have believed in this initiative and have supported it with close to $2 million to date.
Thx to the 20 universities for helping the students to apply for the scholarship.
Our last but not least thx should go to IIE for their excellent work in managing the scholarship and for their enthusiasm.
Listening to the students and alumni, reading their stories on this blog proves to all of us that there is hope for a recovery from 45 years of exclusion from the mainstream of the global economy for this region.
I can confirm that the scholarship has shaped my life and career and I am glad to be part of the GE Foundation Scholar-Leaders’ family. I hope I can pay back by shaping the region and hopefully one day directly to the GE Foundation by supporting future Scholars. Big thank you to everybody who keep the GE Scholar Leaders Program alive.
It was great to see how this new generation wants to make a REAL difference of this region and their respective countries as well. GE showed the way how a global giant should take care of the sustainable development of the communities she operates. I really hope that the new genereation of leaders – also from other global companies and government offials – will finally understand that the key of our future lays in our hands. Let’s make a REAL difference…
It was a really great experience, I enjoyed every minutes. I think it was one of the most fantastic week in my life. The LDP changed our lives, and helped to be a better leader. I hope that many people will have the same experience, and thank again for GE Foundation and IIE.
It was soo wonderful to see the faces of the new Scholar-Leaders and alumni alike… Pawel Bogacz, one of the alumni once remarked that what makes this program so truly unique is that here people not only freely and enthusiastically talk to each other, but also help each other, offer to help even if unasked, and are happy about each other’s success… This is unfortunately not as characteristic of the CEE region as it should be. Let’s hope the program contributes to spreading this attitude, and changes the reactions we inherited from the past.
Before communism, countries in CEE worked very well together (maybe with the understandable exception of Hungary). I think we are doing a very good job of picking up where we left off, this time warmly including Hungary in our select group. May this continue, to the benefit of the people in our countries and of Europe, as a whole.
Few other programmes measure up to the Scholar Leader Programme. Its investment in character building through education will provide invaluable return for the region. Personally, I know that it changed my life and, through me, will change the lives of many. The greater picture of how its leadership and education sides come together for the betterment of individuals and the society as a whole is accurately portrayed by one of my favourite quotes:
„Preventing conflicts is the work of politics; establishing peace is the work of education.” (Maria Montessori)
LDP offers us a great opportunity. As one of the speakers said: We learnt that it is no limits for our potential and our future- a real lesson of confidence, courage and networking. Our first step for being a leader is to want to come out from our box. LDP inspired us and also helped to do this.
Thank you GE Foundation and IIE!
It is hard to express in words how I feel about receiving GE Foundation scholarship. In connection with it I will try to write about it from the bottom of my heart
Budapest… I still have a vivid picture of workshops in my mind.
I never expected that I could be able to meet people from other countries and form international friendships in such a short time. What I really like in this Program is that we had the occasion to spend time together, learn to listen each other, communicate effectively. But the best is the whole idea of working together. I have to say I never expected that scholarship can help me build international network.
I’m sure that your scholarship helped me get one step closer to my goal. In what way? Thanks to it I learnt that they are no limits and boundaries (maybe some in our minds). What I love about this program is that we faced various challenges. Personally, it made me stronger as a person, just enriched me.
I know I will make good use of things I learnt during LDP. Dear IIE and GE Foundation, thank you very very much!
I would like to thank all members of the IIE staff that organized this beautiful and useful event together with GE Foundation. It was very helpful, because we had the opportunity to realize how important is self-confidence to make the world a better place. We created new contacts and network with people, who are very ambitious and determined to achieve something significant in a real life and who are also very willing to help each other. I wish that all of us do not stop on it, and we will be extending our abilities in the future life to reach more and more important aims not only for us, but also or even mainly for other people.
Although I was selected for the program over 5 years ago, it is only since few months that I start to value it even more, by recalling people I have met so far on various events. Tomasz and Gyorgy stories showed the great value for the business, while Cintia indicated LDP as the marker in her life that helped to boost own self-confidence. That is indisputable, but I believe that the power of networking is just to be explored by us even further in time. Knowing hundreds of people all around the Europe/world gave us great possibility to use that contact also (or should I say, in the first place) socially in private life. We don’t have to revolutionize the world… yet:), but let us try not to waste such opportunity and build/remain as a team. To paraphrase Milena, the best is the idea of acting together. See you in next 5 years… or if everything works out a bit shorter in time;). Cheers!
Massive thanks to everyone for organising the reunion. The programme has become fantastic because people bought into the concept of the regional cooperation, exchanging ideas, motivating and inspiring each other. Now it’s over to us to keep the momentum going and make the most of it.
There is another reunion meeting being organised by Tomasz Janeczko&Co in Poland and would be great if the Czechs and Romanians picked up the baton afterwards.
As one of the greatest Olympians ever said – “You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the further you get.”
M. Phelps
Let’s dream on then, play hard and work even harder together!!