UNITECH Alumni Association

Last Tuesday, 22nd of December the Local UNITECH Chapter Spain organized the last meeting of the year: 17 people joined for our Christmas Gathering.

As always, we tried to organize the meeting in a way that mixes culture -offering something special to discover for the foreign UNITECH people living in Barcelona- and quality –so we can also attract Spanish “natives”.

So we thought Txakolí restaurant would be the perfect choice: Basc cuisine is meant to be the best in Spain, and it offers a relaxed environment ideal to meet people, network, make friends, and overall, spend a nice time together. We hope everybody enjoyed the “pintxos-idea”. After the dinner, all those people that helped us during the UNITECH presentations at the University were offered a drink –as a greeting for their collaboration- and the bravest ones followed to discover Barcelona’s nightlife … but this is another story, to be told in the next meeting, maybe.

On behalf of the LUC Spain we would like to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and hope to keep on offering better and better events and activities. And remember we are open for suggestions and ideas.

December 19^th Dortmund

The last UAA event in the local chapter Germany took place just before Christmas. Alexandra Schwarz was able to organise some tickets for us to see a soccer game of BVB Borussia Dortmund. And it was not just any game, but the one where the team and fans celebrated the 100^th anniversary of the club. We were very excited as we read before, that there will be special celebrations. So we left early from Aachen and more or less enjoyed the usual delay of the German trains.

Once we were in the stadium we were able to warm up a bit in the Evonik lounge and enjoy a quick lunch, before heading to our seats. We came just in time to see a huge banner being displayed by the fans. As they were also singing their anthem, it was a very emotional moment, even for those of us, who are less interested in soccer. The game itself was nice to watch, even though we were freezing a lot. The guest team was nice enough to allow a nice goal, so Dortmund won the game 1-0. After the game we witnessed an impressive laser and pyro-show. An spectacular end to a great UAA year in Germany!

December 17, 2009: Zurich

Last Thursday, some Swiss UNITECHers weren't afraid of the cold and gathered around the "Singing Christmas Tree" next to Bahnhofstrasse for some Glühwein (hot spiced wine). As soon as we started to have trouble feeling our feet, it was time to switch places.

The rest of the evening was spent in Johanniter, a cozy place in the Niederdorf neighbourhood serving Swiss dishes. The cozyness lasted until almost midnight, when most people left - full and happy, as we hope. A few darers (or people living just around the corner) even had some more drinks, after which also the last member of the LUC Switzerland was released into the holiday season.

December 15^th, 2009: Aachen

Just in time with the first cold days of the winter, the LUC Germany gathered for the (almost) last time this year and enjoyed the famous Christmas Market in Aachen. Even though not everybody found all the Christmas gifts for their beloved ones, we all enjoyed the night. Thanks to a good team effort, we got enough hot wine to keep us warm and so the time went by very fast. As the market was closing some last ones took a last drink in a pub nearby before going home.

Thanks to everybody for joining and keeping the UNITECH network alive. To those, who I won't see again, I would like to take this opportunity and wish you pleasant holidays and a good start into the New Year. See you at the next UNITECH Alumni event soon!

PS: Thanks to Stefanie, Liesbeth and Sybille, who send us snow, sun and cold feet. It feels nice to know, that coaches and honorary alumni are taking care of us, even when they cannot join an event :)

December 9^th, 2009: Gothenburg

For the last LUC Sweden event of 2009, the members got to vote on the date and activity for the event. The members choose to have an after work. We met at Babar & Restaurang located on Avenyn, the principal road in central Gothenburg. As with the previous LUC Sweden event in September, there was an unexpected turn of events. That evening, there was no after work! This despite that fact that the LCC had confirmed with the restaurant before booking. Some negotiated free chips and peanuts saved the evening for those who were hungry.

December 7^th, 2009: Aachen

It was time again for the bonding company contact fair in Aachen. So as Local Chapter Germany we took the chance and asked the Corporate Partners who attended the fair to meet us. Voith and Hilti happily accepted and joined our get-together.

We met in a wine bar in the centre of Aachen and enjoyed the good wine and atmosphere. But even more everybody took the opportunity to talk to old and new friends, Corporate Partners, Alumni and students alike. It was a real success and I am looking forward to more events like this one in the future.

December 3^rd, 2009: Den Haag

Sinterklaas is a Dutch celebration comparable to Santa Claus and Papa Noël in other parts of the world. The UAA invited Unitech members to bring small presents as an imput for the student version of the party, where a game is played to divide the gifts. As Sinterklaas is Spanish (or Catalan, doesn't matter) in the Dutch tradition, Carlos, from Barcelona, was made Sinterklaas right from the start. He put on the Sinterklaas hat and everybody who wanted a present from his traditional bag had to go sit on his lap.
The night was a great succes and special thanks has to go to Jeroen Smith who invited us in his home to host the event. Also thanks to everybody for coming, and hope to see you next time as well!

November 18^th, 2009: Zurich

The UAA was actively involved in the promotion of the UNITECH program for students of ETH. The event started with a speech of professor Lino Guzzella who explained UNITECH in general. Following, Silvan Tschopp gave a testimonial about his academic exchange in Paris and his internship with Hilti in France, Samuel Burri emphasized the private and professional network extension that many program participants experience in his testimonial, and in the third testimonial Mark Blum encouraged students to consider the entrepreneurial chances that arise through the participation in UNITECH. The event closed with a Q&A session, preceded by a detailed explanation of the application process, described by Ruth Bürkli in collaboration with Joel Liebi.

Let's hope we could encourage a lot of students to apply. We're looking forward to a great new generation of UNITECH students from ETH Zurich in 2010.

November 16^th, 2009: Essen

Alexandra and a team from Evonik organized a workshop in Essen to help redo their career pages on the Internet. They invited their different target groups to this workshop: pupils, apprentices, students in science, engineering and business, young professionals and professionals.

Due to the good network between UNITECH, the UAA and Evonik, several UNITECHs also joined the event. 5 students from the Local UNITECH Chapter Germany came as well as Oliver Prinz from Hilti and Carel Steensma, the former Secretary General.

The day was accompanied by a professional film team that captured a lot of material and will use it for a “making of” which will be available on the new Evonik website.

Goals of the day were to generate new ideas and have fun. We hope we were able to meet the first and are certain about the second. We wish Alexandra and the entire team at Evonik fun and success with implementing these ideas and killing the “phrase-swine”.

On the 9th of November UAA LUC Spain was kindly invited to a company day by AGBAR.

The first part consisted in a visit of one of AGBAR’s installations: the water purification plant ETAP located near Barcelona. Among other services, AGBAR is responsible for providing drinkable water in the area of Barcelona and several surrounding cities. In such a huge and industrialized area making that amount of drinkable water seems to be a big challenge, and AGBAR’s plant is able to provide more than 120.000.000 m3 of treated water annually! They showed us all the different areas of the plant explaining different technologies and processes involved in the purification, and answered all our questions.

Afterwards we headed back to their headquarters, the AGBAR Tower, where we followed the visit. It was designed by the French Architect Jean Nouvel and it is one of the tallest (142m) and most emblematic buildings of Barcelona. Despite there are many creative ideas about its meaning, the tower is built to symbolize a geyser. And all the elements, its form and colours both in the exterior and the interior are wisely selected to create this effect: starting from reddish ambient in the base of the tower to more bluish-sky colours in the top. Many other curiosities and secrets were also explained, however, we will not tell them all. It is better to discover everything with your own eyes … so maybe you can join us in our next visit there?

After all, our 15 participants were very satisfied with the visit:

“Thank you very much for this really good company visit with the great opportunity to get to know AGBAR better. I enjoyed seeing the water treatment plant a lot and the Torre AGBAR was amazing. I would also like to highlight the honesty and openness in the answers in the presentation at the end.” (Johannes Thul, UNITECH year, 2009).

On behalf of UAA LUC Spain I strongly hope the participants will also find a nice place in there for internships, work or business opportunities. I would also like to greet AGBAR for opening their doors and for the given attention.

October 28^th and 29^th, 2009: Aachen

Our rector and president of UNITECH International, Prof. Ernst Schmachtenberg, invited the new incomings in Aachen for a welcome meeting. As representatives of the UAA, Jona Hampe and Roman Stiehl also participated.

We talked with him about the situation of the incomings and he told us that he is new to UNITECH so he is unsure what is expected from him as a President. Therefore we suggested that he could use his contacts within companies in Germany to attract more Corporate Partnes for UNITECH. We surely wish him a lot of success for that. Afterwards we all were invited to lunch by the International Office.

One day later with about 15 Alumni we helped the International Office in promoting UNITECH to new students. Since a lot of advertisement had been done before, about 200 students attended and we even had to change places to a bigger lecture hall. Sarah Vespermann introduced UNITECH and then we told about our experiences.

Afterwards we answered their questions as good as we could. When only one student was left we switched places to a nearby pub and ended the night with a cold beer. We wish good luck to all students who will apply for UNITECH and look forward to seeing them next year.

To welcome the incoming students of the year 2009/10, we went for dinner at Les Halles, a location that's a market place, a vintage race bicycle shop and a Peugeot garage plus a bar/restaurant in the evening. We were around 20 people, of which about ten were incoming, that means almost all incomings were there.

Please excuse the less than stellar quality of the pictures, but it should be visible that we had fun.

October 17th & 18th: Zurich

Roughly one month after the elections of the new council members and the LCCs at the GA in Aachen, we met for the first time in Zurich on October 17th. The goals of the meeting were:

• get to know each other
• establish a common understanding of our roles
• exchange experiences and ideas
• establish an agreement on our collaboration
• get started with the planning of our next events
• set the goals for the new council and the local chapters

The minutes of the meeting will be distributed to our members but not published publicly.

September 24^th, Gothenburg

August 28^th, 2009: Aachen

Following the festive UNITECH Gala dinner in the casino of Aachen, the UAA invited all participants to join the traditional UAA party. As the party was conviniently located in the club underneath the casino, people took the opportunity for a drink, some chatting, dancing and enjoying the good music. Soon more and more people filled the dance floor and partied non-stop until the very end at 6 in the morning. But the end of the party did not mean the weekend was over.

Starting already at 11 am, almost 70 hard-bitten people gathered for a long, refreshing breakfast and brunch at a café in Aachen. With regained spirits, we took the train to Cologne and enjoyed a very relaxing afternoon.

We started with the most famous landmark of Cologne and admired the cathedral during a guided tour. Afterwards we headed down to the river to take a cruise on the Rhine - probably the most enjoyable way to get some afternoon sun and see the city from another perspective.To have the social programme come to an adequate end we had dinner at a traditional local brewery with genuine Kölsch beer and some typical German food.

Thanks again to everybody who joined for making these days unforgettable once again!

July 10^th-12^th, 2009: Aachen

For almost one year we’d been thinking of spending a day at the high ropes course with people from the Local Unitech Chapter Germany, but it never became more than just lip service. During the Winter Session in Brussels I was telling Melanie (UAA Council, Special Initiatives and Events) about this idea and about my thoughts to invite the LUCs close by. She immediately got excited and suggested to turn it into a UAA session. I liked the idea and, together with Christian, Sebastian (both 2008) and Jan (2003), I agreed on organizing something. To motivate Unitech Alumni from abroad to join we upgraded the program to a whole weekend with good food, partying, climbing, beach sports and barbecue. In addition we offered everybody from abroad to stay at one of our places to save the money for a hotel and to dive into the German culture.

So on Friday, after accommodating the guests from Paris and Delft, we started with a Welcome Dinner and some Drinks in one of the numerous restaurants at Pontstraße. There, we had the chance to catch up and get to know everyone we hadn’t known before. Since people from six different Unitech Years and five different nationalities were joining, we had lively conversations and good laughs. Thereafter, we sallied out to a 90s Party in the “Aachener Westbahnhof” and enjoyed good vibes and drinks.

On Saturday we met up at the University to take the RWTH shuttle to get to the climbing forest nearby. There we had to gear up and got an introduction and some instructions from the climbing guides. The forest offers six routes for climbing with a broad variety of obstacles, long slides, shaky ropeways and swinging steps. The bravest of us could even experience the thrill of a mountain bike ride over a narrow bridge in an altitude of 15 meters. After regaining solid ground under our feet we headed for the Rursee, a small lake, and were lucky to find the weather gods smiling upon us. We spend the time playing beach volley, soccer, ping pong and some of us couldn’t resist the urge to take a dip in the lake (which was actually very refreshing!). Having been active all day, we started barbequing with a ravenous hunger. Back in Aachen we went out to a dj set in the club “Jakobshof” and partied all night long…

Before our guests departed on Sunday we assembled for a big lunch buffet at a restaurant called “Galilei” and spent some more time together.

In the end, I want to thank everybody who contributed to this great weekend – it certainly was a lot of fun.

See you all at the annual reunion in Aachen,

Jona

June 30, 2009: London

May 23, 2009: Brussels