Successful AGM in New York City

OCEANS second Annual General Meeting has just taken place in New York from September 15th-17th. And it was AMAZING!!!

On Thursday all our OCEANS members participating met for the first time in the Grand Centrals' Biltmore room getting ready for the first OCEANS city hunt - networking included.

75 OCEANS members from 23 different nationalities came from all over the world to the Big Apple to meet, have fun, and participate in three original, fascinating, and absorbing workshops and listen to some interesting speakers.

 

First the Dean of Parsons The New School for Design, Mr. Joel Towers, gave the participants a warm welcome speech, followed by words of Mr. Valerí Natanelov (former president of OCEANS Network), Ms. Martine Deré (DG Education and Culture of the European Commission), Mr. Ioannis Vrailas (Deputy Head of Delegation of the European Union to the UN) and Mr. Miodrag Mitrasinovic, Dean of the School of Design Strategies at Parsons. The president  of Erasmus Mundus Association, Jean Carlos Pelicano, shared best practices of EMA with OCEANS members and Mr. Paul Gaston provided the group with an interesting lecture about Higher Education in the US and the EU. 

 

In a melting pot of students and alumni they all gained a better understanding of cultural differences within a diverse working environment during an intercultural awareness workshop. The two other workshops focused on project management and entrepreneurship both led by compelling, amazing, involving and inspiring speakers!

Moreover, Ester, Sven and Ben, three members from Belgium who went to Parsons New School for Design for an exchange, presented their project on urbanisms of inclusion in Baltimore. This gave us a great example of how designing in a country abroad itself fosters intercultural awareness.

After a year of building and developing the Network, all participants gave a warm goodbye to the old Coordinating Board and a welcome to the new Coordinating Board took over.

We met old friends and we made new ones! And we are looking very much forward to the next activities of our OCANS Network.

 

Manuela Capraro, Communications Coordinator of OCEANS Network

P.S. For more information about the second AGM, read our brochure.