20.10.2023

Great event! Fantastic! Repeat it!

These were just some of the enthusiastic comments of former IB students who joined the 25 years of International Business celebration on 20 Oct 2023.

We were delighted that over 140 alumni, professors and staff joined the reunion and took the opportunity to walk down memory lane with us. Some, including alumni from the very first cohort in 1998, had travelled as far as Dubai and the US to be there. The event started out with a campus tour, including a look inside the new library with its extraordinary architecture. The alumni also met up and chatted with current IB students, some of whom are involved with the NORA Racing Car project (the latest car was on show in the BL Foyer). Following the official welcome by our Dean Prof. Frank Ulrich Fricke, Prof. Dr. Uwe Mummert, our VP for Internationalisation and former academic head of the IB-Programme, provided insight into the targets of internationalisation at the university level and the newly established OHM International School. Prof. Dr. Helen Rogers, the current academic head of the Bachelor IB, then presented some of the many highlights and milestones of IB over the years. The event was rounded off by speakers from our IB Alumni who took us along their journeys since graduation. For example, two IB graduates, Eva Maria Boder and Peter Daiser, who have since gone on to become HAW professors, emphasized how important it is to have mentors to point you in the right direction. Loai Abouelrouse who is now a social media celebrity with over 1 million followers on Instagram talked about his career in Tech Talks, i.e. making computer software comprehensible to the general public. He also went on to captivate the audience as he spoke passionately about „Life from Water“,  an NGO he founded during his time as a student at the OHM which provides water treatment units to purify and decontaminate water, alongside digging wells for the poorest of the poor in Africa. Steven Pawlowicz shared his experiences as a start-up entrepreneur. His media company created the IB image film released in 2022. Thanks to all of our alumni who participated in the IB Showcase for your inspiring speeches!

All in all, it was an event that proved that the „IB spirit“ is still alive and, we agree that we should not wait another 25 years to repeat it!