A couple of weeks back, JIBS had a visit from Shahid Ansari, Provost and Dean of Faculty at Babson College.

Babson College, located in Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA, is recognized internationally for its entrepreneurial leadership in a changing global environment, and JIBS are proud to have started discussions on collaboration with them.

Here are some words from professor Ansari:

“Babson has changed its global strategy to move away from specific and narrow relationships with a large number of universities to a few strategic partners that have the same world view and focus as Babson.  I find JIBS to be attractive as a partner because they have a strong commitment to entrepreneurship and a similar world view about higher education.”

“Moving forward we see a number of complementary joint value creation opportunities within our schools.  First, because JIBS has an emphasis on research we would like to rely on them for the education of doctoral students for the various global ventures that Babson has.  For example, we might select promising graduate students in Asia or the Middle East and send them to JIBS to get a doctoral degree.  Unlike JIBS, Babson’s primary focus is teaching and pedagogy, therefore JIBS could send prospective or current faculty members from various parts of the world to Babson for teacher training.”

“We also hope that jointly we will open several cohorts of our Fast Track MBA with JIBS as a partner.”

By Maria Nordström

They are called ”summer entrepreneurs” and with the help of Science Park Jönköping they start up their own businesses during the summer holidays.

Science Park, partly owned by Jönköping University, stimulates and contributes to the creation, development and growth of knowledge-intensive business. One of the ways to do this is to provide free coaching, workshops and counselling for students who want to start their own businesses. During summer, Science Park accepts applications from students who are interested in starting their own business, and at the same time finds companies who need help with specific tasks. The companies are then matched to the students, who form their business and start to work as consultants.

”I have been thinking for a long time about starting my own business, and this is a very good way to get going, says Johan Jonzén, who studies Business Administration at JIBS.

The tasks that the new consultants are assigned can be anything from market research and customer analysis to programming and graphical work. Science Park supports them with questions regarding taxes, keeping the books and other practical issues, and there are also office premises that they may use free of charge.

This summer, Science Park has received 90 applications from students, and this has resulted in 15 new businesses.

”We continously match new students to companies, so the number will increase as summer progresses,” says Gustav Österström, business developer at Science Park. ”This project has been running for a few years now, and there is a lot of interest both from companies and from students. The companies are very satisfied with the work of the students, and many of them return year after year.”

Johan Jonzén, Lisa Josefsson and Karl-Johan Timbäck are all students at JIBS. They have each started their own business but they will work together on their summer project for Kinnarps Interior.

”Their expectations of us are really high,” says Lisa Josefsson. ”What we do will form the basis for their future work.”

Kristofer Larsson was a summer entreprenur last year. During his last year of studying at JIBS, he has gotten more assignments and has been working in parallel with his studies. Now he will work with his own business full time. The help from Science Park has been invaluable, he says. In the future, he hopes that his business will do so well that he can employ more people.

Don’t forget to check out the official JIBS Facebook page!

By Leticia Lövkvist and Vaida Vysniauskaite

JIBS is running its Summer Programme for the fifth time!  The programme has welcomed students from JIBS’ summer partners, as well as JIBS’ programme students. Internationalization is an important component of the program, as well as the diversity in students’ academic backgrounds. Participating students come from a number of different countries – China, France, India, Italy, Lithuania, Mexico,  Moldova,  Morocco,  Nigeria,  Pakistan, Sweden, Tajikistan and Vietnam.

The courses that are run are International Entrepreneurship and Venturing and International Logistics and Supply Chain Management. They are taught in conjunction with the Centre for Innovation Systems Entrepreneurship and Growth (CISEG) and the Centre of Logistics and Supply chain Management (CeLS). Course coordinators and administrators are Tomas Karlsson and Magdalena Markowska,  and Helgi Valur Fridriksson  and Lianguang Cui, respectively. Besides the academic content, students are able to experience the Swedish culture through cultural and social activities included in the programme, such as the reception at the Municipality of Jönköping, a bus tour of Jönköping and Huskvarna, a visit to Vadstena’s castle and Gränna.  In addition, students will have a company visit to IKEA’s Distribution Centre in Torsvik, which will give them  a picture of a successful Swedish company working globally. The programme will end with a farewell dinner in the beginning of July.

For more information please contact JIBS’ International Office.

Please find below some pictures taken so far from JIBS’ Summer Programme.

A visit to Vadstena Castle – together with the queen.

Inside the ruins of Brahehus.

Exploring Gränna…

… and taking in valuable knowledge during the lectures.

By Leticia Lövkvist and Vaida Vysniauskaite

It was time again for the traditional “goodbye meeting” with JIBS’ exchange students who have just finished their semester abroad at JIBS!  Meeting the students as a group for the last time is a great opportunity to provide them with important information they need to know before going back to their home countries and universities. During the meeting the students received information related to academic matters as well as advice on how it is to return home and to prepare for the re-adjustment process. In addition, students were encouraged to join JIBS Alumni association and come back to JIBS to participate in JIBS’ summer programme and/or master programmes. The meeting ended with a lucky lottery where students could win nice prizes, followed by the traditional “Swedish fika”. Please see below some of the pictures taken during the meeting as well as short interviews done with our exchange students.

We have asked the students what their most memorable experience from the exchange semester at JIBS was…

“I have never experienced cold, it was exciting for me to play with snow.” Taichi Takahashi (Kansai Gaidai University, Japan)

“Living in Vilhemsro was perfect. I have also got a Swedish contact family. It was the best five months in my life.” Selin Zeybek (Bilkent University, Turkey)

“During my studies at JIBS I had the opportunity to take four courses and what made them so special was the cultural richness I gained from having teachers with different nationalities and ideologies and at the same time the experience of working in teams with people from all over the world with their own thoughts, values, beliefs and ways of thinking. The accompaniment and guidance provided from the International Office was the key element in the process of adaptation not only with the courses but with the life in general.” Angelica Maria Echeverria Monsalve (Universidad del Norte, Colombia)

“I liked the intercultural environment and really appreciated the fact that the university is accessible 24/7. I think it is very helpful for studying.” Nicolas Wook (EM Strasbourg, France)

“There are an abundance of books in the library. We can find all the information we need there. Another thing about studies at JIBS is that the school emphasizes teamwork. We do the assignments with other people and learn how to communicate with our teammates and combine different ideas together. These are the key points in our future jobs.” Li Shen (Shanghai University, China)
“Courses I took at JIBS are all very well organized – not only well presented in a succinct and interesting manner but succeed in designing seminars and assignments.” Liu Liu (Tsinghua University)
“In the courses that I joined we had guest lectures and student lectures, the classroom is the stage for entrepreneurs and students which is a great way of organizing business courses. My self-learning ability and communication skills have increased tremendously.” Xin Li (Nankai University, China)
“The snow, the mix of culture, the Swedish food. I also got to visit Stockholm. Jönköping is a really good place to study.” Alberto Alan Malfavon Molina (ITESM Campus Monterrey, Mexico)

“Meeting new people from all around the world, getting to know different cultures – that is what I will bring back with myself as the most memorable experience from exchange studies at JIBS.”
Jirí Hofman (University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic)

By: Leticia Lövkvist, International Exchange Student Coordinator

I had the opportunity to represent Jönköping International Business School (JIBS) at the Australia Exchange Fair Circuit, from April 27 to May 6. This fair is a collaboration of many of Australia’s universities, whereby fairs are held at their campuses around the country to promote student exchange.

Leticia Lövkvist promoting JIBS!

The Fair circuit facilitates awareness and exposure of the Australian Universities’ International Partners. The involvement in the fair has offered me the opportunity to network with JIBS partner universities’ students and staff, as well as other international and Australian institutional representatives. My main goal was to promote JIBS as a student exchange destination, so in addition to the participation in the fair, I had the opportunity to have meetings with different representatives at the Universities and presentations in the classrooms.

Leticia Lövkvist (JIBS) and Prof. Gensheng Shen, Dean International ECU

It is important for JIBS to be able to attract more Australian students, so that we can bring balance to the exchange program and continue sending JIBS students to Australia on exchange. The Universities I visited are in Perth: Curtin University of Technology, Edith Cowan University (ECU) and Murdoch University, and in Melbourne: Deaking University Campus Geelong and Campus Burwood, Swinburne University, La Trobe University, RMIT and Victoria University.

Sophia IP (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University), Jackie Taylor (Deakin, Australia), Kasey Dugan (Deakin, Australia) Leticia Lövkvist (JIBS, Sweden) and Alejandro Escudero (ESSCA, France)

At some of the Universities I was accompanied by JIBS students who are studying in Australia during the spring 2010 semester. At ECU:  Daniel Carlsson and Mikael Falck, at Swinburne University:  Jens Myhrman and former exchange student Krystina Witt, at La Trobe: Pontus Petersson and at Deaking University: Marcus Törnblom and Martin Andersson. In addition JIBS was represented by our student Anna Norrsell Karlsson at the Queenslad University of Technology fair, which took place on April 21.

Swinburne Univeristy with JIBS' student Jens Myhrman and Australian student Krystina Witt, former JIBS exchange student.

Fair at Deakin University with Australian student Sarah Grills, prospective JIBS exchange student.

Students showed great interest when knowing more about JIBS’ large number of courses offered in English in different areas of studies, JIBS’ international profile, the integration of international students in the courses and the student body in general. In addition they considered very important the services offered to international students such as the pick-up service, help in finding accommodation, the induction week and support by the international office during their studies. Sweden being a modern, safe, developed and well-organized country, as well as most Swedes being fluent in English, was also significant. Knowing about the extracurricular activities organized by JSA (JIBS’ student Association) and IA (International Association at Jönköping University) motivated them as well.

Fair at ECU with JIBS students Daniel Carlsson and Mikael Falck

By: Erik Lagerwall

We started the day by checking out from the hostel, which took some time since some people enjoy sleeping. But after our hectic day yesterday, we deserved to take a long morning.

Since we had our meeting with Carnegie at 3pm we decided to walk around in Stockholm. We visited the Stockholm and the church where Daniel and Crown Princess Victoria will get married in the 19th of June. We also walked around in the old town of Stockholm to have some ice cream and look at the old stock exchange.

At Carnegie we met up with Maria Johansson from the HR department, she had arranged a great visit for us. We got to meet people from the corporate finance department, research department and the sales department. Carnegie as many knows have been through a rough time, and they were very open with it, and we got ask a lot of questions to them.

We got a good look at their new offices in Stockholm, which they moved into in September last year. They have really nice head office and we got to sit in the executive boardroom, which has a great view over Stockholm. We ended our visit at Carnegie by going down to their trading floor, and it was just like we had expected. People shouting at each other, talking loudly in their phones with clients and they all have at least 5 different computer screens to look at.

After Carnegie we hade some spare time for some shopping and for some food before going back to Jönköping.

These 2 days in Stockholm have been really great, and we have meet a lot of different companies, but specially we got to chance to see different parts of what makes up our economy in Sweden.

By: Erik Lagerwall

Together SIFE and Nordnet Trading Room hace educated students in Jönköping in private economy and basic stock trading. The finale of this education is a trip up to Stockholm, to visit different financial actors.

We left JIBS around 6 am in the morning yesterday, for some people that was a bit early but we drank some coffee and managed to get on the road.

Our first stop in Stockholm was with Länsförsäkringar. They talked about the different segments they work with and how they try to combine them into one product. One interesting thing is that Länsförsäkringar is organized in a different way then most companies.

After Länsförsäkringar we visited Nordnet to learn more about how to be successfull on the stock market. The lecture was very interesting, and we learnt a lot from them and how we should invest.

The last visit of the day was with Riksbanken (Central Bank). This lecture was really good, and if we could we would probably have stayed much longer with them. Because we had a lot of question that we want the to ask, and we learnt so much about the differentiation from ECB and Riksbanken.

We ended the day with Dinner, and hopefully we will have a good next day!

At April 21 we celebrated International Day at JIBS. It was really crowded with lots of food from all around the world, guest lectures, amazing performances and more than 30 countries represented.

By Nima Beik

My name is Nima Beik and I am 18 years old. I am a Canadian born citizen, but right now I am living in the States, Phoenix, Arizona. All I have ever wanted to do in my life was play football professionally. I started playing football at the age of 6 in Canada, mainly pee-wee type of play. Then I moved to the states at the age of 12 and that is where things started getting competitively serious in what I wanted to do in my future as far as football goes.

As soon as my senior year was coming to an end in high school, I applied for Jönköping University, a school which my mom found because my parents are also very much into football and how I want to make it to the pro leagues someday. Anyways, my mom found out that not only was the school free and it offered my second favorite major (Business), but it offered the 3 year European visa. What a perfect opportunity to take advantage of, to go play football in Europe, my only dream/goal in life. I know that some people usually say, “why didn’t you go to Spain, or Italy, or England, or France to play? Why Sweden, they are not so strong and they don’t pay so well?” Well that answer for you was already stated. You always need to start somewhere in life, and what better country than Sweden!

I am currently studying the BBI Program (Business and IT) and I am almost finished with my first year, which, quite frankly, was a breeze. Not only that, but only about 3-4 months after I came to Sweden, I signed for a Division 2 semi-professional club team called Tenhults IF. Our team’s goal this season is to move up to Division 1 and although we may be a small-town club in Jönköping, but we are a very well-known club with lots of talent. Also, this year was a big year for us due to the fact that we signed 9 new players, including me a foreigner for the first time!

I was really excited about this when it happened, and right now I can say that I am definitely living half of the dream. The full dream is yet to come where all I do in my life is eat, breathe, and dream about football. I hope this goal will be accomplished soon in life, but just a reminder out to all you people who read and hopefully enjoyed this small article I wrote: Never ever give up your dream or your desire in life. If you want it, you can have it, but it is not an easy task and you must always work hard 24/7. Usually my motto goes a little bit like this: Trying is always having an intention of failing, just do it with no questions or concerns and you will be successful and accomplish whatever you want with no worries or doubts in life!

I am really happy with so much of what I have accomplished in my life and I know that there is still more of an adventure to travel across. If it wasn’t for JIBS offering the quality satisfaction of what they offer to students still today, then I can definitely say, I wouldn’t exactly be where I am today, thinking and living the life style I am today, and being who I am today!

P.S. – If you want to read more about me, just check out my website www.nimabeik.com