Over 170 students from 19 CEMS clubs and 110 bottles of wine. How was the so far biggest CEMS V4 Conference?
After four years, the CEMS V4 Conference returned to Prague. This year, CEMS Club Prague, who was the organizer of the event which rotates every year between the CEMS Clubs from Visegrád countries, managed to attract the largest number of participants ever to its three-day programme with the theme DATA UNIVERSE. A total of 171 participants came, and not only from the V4 countries. Students from a total of 19 CEMS clubs, 21 countries and 4 continents arrived.
The CEMS V4 conference offered a unique combination of professional development and leisure activities. It started on Wednesday 10 April with a panel discussion and networking, followed by workshops and dinners on Thursday, interviews with companies and a closing gala on Friday 12 April, followed by parties. An emphasis on sustainability was also an integral part of the conference – vegan food was served and care was taken to reduce waste, especially discarded plastics.
How did it all work out? Take a look at the photos.
“We started preparations in November and it’s been an incredible ride that has taken hundreds of hours of work. But then the conference itself exceeded all our expectations. It was an absolute euphoria and most importantly we attracted people from all over the world to Prague. Over 30 people came from Switzerland alone and some even crossed the ocean, for example from Canada, in order to join the conference,“ says Ondřej Svoboda, who led the organizing team together with Jan Budinský.
“But none of this would have been possible without our corporate partners and the work of the entire organizing team,” adds Svoboda. This year’s conference partners included Hilti, Loreal, Accenture, Google, Kearney, BCG, Asahi, Cola-Cola HBC, P&G.
Together with them, the organizers also prepared 8 Skill Seminars, which were of unprecedented interest among the conference participants. “We had over 140 registrants in just the first ten minutes of the opening of the registration for the seminars. We had to increase the capacity shortly after that,” says Hanna Fridrik, who was in charge of the academic programme.
In addition to Skill seminars and activities designed for professional growth, there was plenty of room for fun and networking. “For example, over 120 students and 15 representatives of corporate partners attended the Rotation Dinner on Thursday, where over 200 pre-arranged meetings between students and corporate partners took place and about 110 bottles of wine were consumed,“ says Jan Budinský. On Friday, over 50 more interviews with the conference’s corporate partners took place at the VŠE.
“For the visitors who have never been to Prague before, which were many this time, we also prepared tours of the city with a homeless person from Pragulic and a historic tram ride through the city center to make the conference in the heart of Europe a truly unforgettable experience,” concludes Jan Budinský
More photos from this year’s CEMS V4 Conference can be found on the CEMSV4Conference instagram account. Many thanks and congratulations to the organizing team for a successful event!
