The Power of Networking or How a Global Business Student Met the Prince of Monaco
On March 9th-10th, 2017, the 10th annual conference ‘CleanEquity Monaco 2017’ was held in the Principality of Monaco. CleanEquity Monaco 2017 is a global forum for innovations in cleantech and environmental technologies, organized by the British consulting company Innovator Capital. The annual conference brings together about thirty of the world's best developers of future technologies.
This year Alesya Zaporozhchiuk, student of the Global Business programme was member of the organizing team. The student spoke about the two-day event and the useful skills and contacts she gained during the conference.
‘My English friend, who works in the company that organized the conference, invited me to join the team. I worked as a volunteer, with my flight paid and accommodation provided, and gained priceless experience.
My job was to help with preparations for the conference and to assist during the event. I organized networking meetings between companies and investors (one-to-one meetings). The forum is a communication platform for participants, during which representatives from both parties can communicate, share experience, or even discuss investments. I organized meetings for nearly 200 participants.
It was a difficult task for me as I didn’t know these people and my job was to help everyone to find the right investor or company representative (Google helped me a lot!). But, on the other hand, it was fascinating work, which helped me to meet all the conference participants, including the CEO of Toyota Mobility Foundation, the Head of the international Department of Innovations and M&A Deloitte, the former President of Adidas, and many others.
Moreover, I had the opportunity to attend panel discussions and some workshops when I had some free time. I particularly liked the panel meeting on artificial intelligence.
I really enjoyed this work. I liked the topics of the conference, talked to some really interesting people, and even saw Albert II, Prince of Monaco.
This experience was made possible by the programme in Global Business and the coordinators, who supported my initiative to work at this conference.