MSM students embrace PechaKucha

No less than seven students, and for the first time, one member of MSM’s mentor program took the stage on Thursday 28 January for the annual New Year PechaKucha event, organized in collaboration with PechaKucha Maastricht.

For the third year, MBA students at MSM are invited to present their dreams, insights and visions to staff, friends, mentors, and MSM’s local business partners and stakeholders, by using the powerful PechaKucha presentation format.

The PechaKucha concept is simple yet effective. Devised by Klein Dytham Architecture in Tokyo in 2003 as a fast-paced presentation format to pitch new ideas, each speaker presents 20 slides, each for 20 seconds. PechaKucha events have grown into valued platforms for inspiration, creativity and networking and are now taking place in close to 900 cities across the world. It has existed in Maastricht since 2009.

After receiving a special introduction and coaching session by PechaKucha Maastricht co-organiser and MSM affiliate communications officer Sueli Brodin, seven MBA students from countries as varied as India, Lebanon, Yemen, Brazil, Zimbabwe and Trinidad and Tobago came forward and volunteered to take up the challenge. Upon hearing about the event, MBA program mentor Jan-Martin Ahrendt, from Maastricht’s expat center, enthusiastically decided to join them. They said they were motivated by the opportunity to share an inspiring story not only with the public at MSM but also later online with the rest of the world, through the PechaKucha Maastricht website.

The presenters were free to choose their own topics and own slides. Many of them fully embraced the chance to demonstrate their creativity. Mohammed Mahdi from Yemen said: “I wanted to talk about the ability of people to be resilient under extreme conditions, by taking the example of my own country. But I didn’t have enough pictures to illustrate my topic. So I asked my friends back home for help and they went on the streets to take photographs for me. One of them even designed the slides for me. I am very grateful for their help and want to credit them all.”

The presentations were as informative and as varied in topic and in style: MBA32 students Gireesh Shrivastava spoke about the extraordinary variety of religions and outings that make up the Indian culture, Antoine Jeha highlighted the value of emotional intelligence as a factor of synergy in the workplace, Anwer Azzan looked at the future of university education, Julia Taddei shared the compelling and dramatic story of the Old Chico river in her home region of Brazil, Beverly Best described a little known yet impressively successful model of regional integration within the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). And last but not least, Ivy Musora inspired the audience with an insightful presentation on the priceless life lessons that can be learned from dogs.

The topic chosen by MBA mentor Jan-Martin Ahrendt could not have been more suitable topic for the international MSM audience: he spoke about the relentless efforts of the Maastricht expat center to establish a regional network of institutions and service providers with the goal to create an attractive climate for internationals in the Maastricht Region. Mr. Ahrendt said he enjoyed this first PechaKucha experience. “Due to the 20×20 time frame I was very nervous before the presentation, but at the same time I was very much looking forward to it. It is a great way to present, to send a message and to draw people’s attention to it. Despite the variety of the topics presented, I did not lose my attention for a minute. The response of the students to my presentation afterwards was very enthusiastic,” he said.

All the presentations were recorded and will be available online soon. Stay tuned!