Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama and Tibetan spiritual leader, encourages young people to share their knowledge as “a way to achieve immortality.” For current university students—children of globalization born in the digital era—going to class and getting an academic education isn’t enough in itself: IE University students are proactive, intellectually curious and often highly skilled, applying the values and knowledge that they gain in university to personal and group projects that are often worth sharing with a larger audience.
The IE Blueprint space is located in one of the busiest places on the Santa Cruz la Real campus
With this in mind, Campus Life has launched IE Blueprint, an initiative that grants more visibility to IE University student projects. IE Blueprint is an expressive space dedicated to presenting student projects that promote and reinforce IE University’s founding pillars of diversity, creativity, sustainability, human values and entrepreneurship, both to university members and visitors to campus. Located in one of the busiest areas of the Santa Cruz la Real campus, the exhibition currently on display presents the most remarkable and innovative pieces by IE University students and alumni, spanning cross-disciplinary projects on the cutting edge of sectors such as ecology, technology, communication and architecture.
These include the Nurture Hub, a spherical greenhouse set up at the Segovia campus to attract pollinators, and a startup called Ñ-The Wolf Company, which sells high-quality shirts made from organic fabric and sustainably manufactured in Spain. IE Blueprint also houses a selection of photographs that have been awarded IE Foundation Prizes in the Humanities. Each year, this award goes to the best written and audiovisual works created by IE University students, alumni, professors and staff members. These are just a few of the projects currently on display at the IE Blueprint space, giving a glimpse into the curiosity and talent of members of the Santa Cruz la Real campus—a diverse environment with students from more than 100 countries.
“We’re looking for projects that are exemplary and unique in terms of their creativity, diversity, entrepreneurial spirit, sustainability and human values, using a variety of styles and themes,” a Campus Life representative says. “IE Blueprint was founded at the Segovia campus three years ago following a small-scale input process that involved professors from IE University’s different faculties. Its goal is to showcase the potential of ideas produced both inside and outside the classroom,” explains Segovia native María Bravo, coordinator of the Campus Life division of Student Affairs and a former IE Blueprint participant. “Now that we’ve consolidated the project and expanded the virtual gallery, we will also start rolling it out at IE University’s Madrid centers,” Bravo adds.
IE Blueprint’s organizers are already preparing for the upcoming spring exhibition. In the next few days, they will be receiving proposals from IE University students and alumni from across the globe. Students have until February 20 to submit their projects, even if they are still in the development phase. As for the process, selected students have to submit a description of how they found the inspiration for their project and how they went about creating it. Afterwards, a jury of IE University professionals will choose the winner. Projects will be displayed on campus as well as posted on the Campus Life website.
There’s no doubt that IE Blueprint is an excellent showcase of IE University’s young talent. It gives any visitor to the Segovia campus the chance to get a first-hand look at how students use their work to convey different concerns, including sustainable development, the transformative power of human values, diversity in all of its manifestations and the added value of the entrepreneurial spirit—all of which are core values of IE University’s academic programs and extracurricular activities. After the spring exhibition comes to a close, Campus Life will get to work on setting up an October edition. The goal is for IE Blueprint to continue to grow each year.
IE University’s Debate Club holds the 2nd annual Model United Nations in Segovia
The Santa Cruz la Real campus in Segovia hosted the 2nd annual Model United Nations (MUN), an educational simulation organized by the IE University Debate Club. This event brought together students from several other Spanish universities, including Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
At this year’s conference, representatives from the five universities teamed up in pairs to debate the impact of COVID-19 on vaccine development and measures to prevent a future global pandemic. Each pair represented the delegation of the country assigned to them and defended their country’s interests on the matter at hand, simulating the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO). After more than six hours of discussion, the delegates jointly approved a resolution proposing different policies to resolve the problem posed in the debates. Model United Nations is a student-led project designed for educational and training purposes. Using different debate and negotiation techniques, students represent member countries in different UN bodies. As a part of this educational experience, they have to step into the shoes of delegates from the country assigned to them, finding solutions to real-life problems currently on the international agenda.
MUN projects seek to develop critical thinking and participation among students, who adopt principles, values and tools that enable them to resolve conflicts peacefully. They also enhance students’ knowledge of current international affairs.