Am ersten Wochenende der Sommerferien flogen Frau Rivera, Frau Vorberg und Herr Kellner mit 12 Schüler/innen nach Davos (Schweiz), um an dem Global Leadership Summit teilzunehmen. Pepijn Groot (Q1) und Marcus Peters (EF) berichten von ihren Erfahrungen:

Experience article by Pepijn Groot (Q1)

Dear students,

have you heard about the so-called “Global Leadership Summit”, which is organized by Education First? Well, go ahead and read this article if you don’t know it yet. You will not regret it. So, this text, article or whatever you want to call it, is to tell you something about the great time I had, while being at such a Summit.

The Summit I went to was the Global Leadership Summit in Davos, Switzerland in July, 2019. First of all, I’m going to tell you something about what such a Summit is. Basically, the Summit is like a congress for teenagers or young adults, where they can learn interesting skills and knowledge about the Summit’s topic, which in my case was “The Power of Communication”. On this Summit, you will use some new techniques to make your own project and to fix problems that relate to the topic. In order to do this, there are guest speakers that will try to inspire you and give you some ideas to hopefully change something meaning. Throughout the weekend, you will be given the opportunity to talk to international students and exchange ideas. There are of course some other activities you might do there, but you need to see it for yourself. ;)

Now to my experience:

Switzerland was such a wonderful place to be. The village or town of Davos was really pretty with an exceptional view. It was my first time in Switzerland and it has made me want to go back (even if it’s maybe a bit expensive). When we arrived in Davos, we were picked up by some staff of EF who took us to the congress center, where we should wait for a bit, before we could get our name tags and a general introduction. As soon as we got all of the information, we went back to the congress center and went inside, where we were greeted in a cool way. All (or at least a great part) of EF’s staff was standing on the two sides of the hallway and formed a tunnel, where we could high-five them as we walked towards the stage room. When we got there, we got a little introduction for the program and then the first guest speaker, Clint Smith, held a very inspiring speech about his life combined with poetry. After this warm welcome, we got to meet our innovation teams, in which we should make our project for the weekend. I myself got really lucky because I got on really well with the rest of my group and we had a wonderful time together (at least from my perspective). After this, we went to the big Meals Tent, where we could get our dinner and just have some fun with others. To sum it up, my first day was just an unbelievably great experience and I already was thrilled for the rest of the weekend.

The next day, Saturday, our day started off with the next featured speaker, Ann Curry. Her speech was, in my opinion, even more inspiring than Clint Smith’s speech (don’t get me wrong here, I still really enjoyed his speech). She talked a lot about how her journalistic career inspired her to do something for the generality. Next step was to go back to our innovation teams and to go on with our project. Because working makes you hungry and we really needed some food, we had lunch after our team session and we could take a “brain break” by playing games, doing some fun exercises or something else. Furthermore, we then had to choose one of many interesting workshops about something that has to do with communication. Then we got back into our groups and started to build our prototypes and exchange our experience. We really made some progress there and after this we got back into our starting groups in which we travelled to Davos to just reflect on the past day. To sum this day up, this day was unbelievable. I really had so much fun in and around the program and I couldn’t wait for the next day to start. I couldn’t believe that the next would already be the last day of the Summit.

Our last day started off with the student empowerment panel consisting of Severn-Cullis Suzuki, David Hogg, Justin Tindall and Valerie Weisler. They all had moving and inspiring speeches, or let’s call it debates, about “raising one’s voice”. Then we had another workshop, followed by some lunch with “brain breaks”. After having the break, we got to finalize our projects and present them to the other groups in our room. It was a lot of fun seeing the other projects and presenting our own and when we were done, we had time to just chat about the weekend because it was already almost over. Last but not least, we were going to listen to the last featured speaker, Kai Kight, who told us a story about him and his music career, which was really interesting, moving and also wholesome. Finally the top ten projects that were chosen by the groups and teachers in total, had the chance to present. When the winning team was announced, it meant that our Summit was basically over and I was kind of sad because I really had a great time. Because all stories need good endings, we had a party to celebrate the weekend after dinner and then we went back to our hostels.

I very much hope that my story about my experience on this Summit will clear any insecurities if you can’t decide if you want to go or not. Also I hope that you got some basic idea about how such a Summit will be. I can only recommend this Summit to anyone who is up for a great time with other people.
Thank you so much again EF! It was AMAZING!

Best of luck for your following summit(s),

Pepijn Groot

Erfahrungsbericht von Marcus Peters (EF)

Bei dem diesjährigen Global Leadership Summit ging es um Kommunikation überall auf der Welt. Zu diesem Leadership Summit habe ich mich entschieden, da es eine einmalige Chance war, mein Englisch zu verbessern, neue Leute kennenzulernen und mehr über Kommunikation herauszufinden.

Am ersten Wochenende der Sommerferien bin ich mit zwölf anderen Schülern sowie Frau Rivera, Frau Vorberg und Herrn Kellner nach Davos (Schweiz) geflogen, um an dem Global Leadership Summit teilzunehmen. Dort konnten wir in Workshops zusammenarbeiten. Hier haben wir unsere Zeit in uns zugeteilten Gruppen verbracht, um ein Problem zum Thema Kommunikation zu finden und eine mögliche Lösung herauszuarbeiten. Zu dieser Lösung konnten wir Websites, Apps oder auch anderes entwickeln. Natürlich mussten alle ihre Projekte noch vorstellen. Da man auch in verschiedene Räume eingeteilt wurde, wurde nur in den Räumen präsentiert. Die besten zehn Gruppen mit den meisten Stimmen mussten schließlich am Nachmittag vor allen Schülern und Lehrern sowie einer Jury präsentieren. Das Projekt des Gewinners wird nun im Nobelpreismuseum ausgestellt. Zur Entspannung gab es so genannte „brain breaks“, wie z. B. Joddeln lernen.

Außerdem trat jeden Tag ein, oder wie am letzten Tag auch mehrere, Sprecher auf, die uns mit ihren Reden zum Thema Kommunikation inspiriert und informiert haben.

Das gesamte Wochenende war einmalig. Alles wurde so gestaltet, dass alle Teilnehmer Spaß hatten und etwas aus diesem Wochenende mitnehmen konnten. Ich selber empfehle dieses Event allen, die dabei Spaß haben, neue Leute kennenzulernen und Englisch zu sprechen.