Montreal, Canada, June 19, 2020 – On the 12th-13th of June 2020, AIESEC hosted the first edition of Global Leadership Day – a marathon-conference on youth leadership, streaming for 24h straight from four time zones and an audience thousands across the globe! 

A challenge turned into an opportunity. 

The event idea was born from the context of AIESEC’s core operations (cross-cultural youth exchanges) being paused in the light of the restrictions and risks associated with mobility in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The challenge? Help develop youth leadership when physical gatherings and travel is highly restricted worldwide.

The opportunity? Make use of technology as an ally to take it online!

The conference aimed to engage youth around the topic of leadership in an online setting that is accessible and free for anyone that can tune in on social media. The result? More than 80k virtual participants across all social media platforms on which the conference has been streamed live.

GLD2020 in numbers 

(Figure 1: Global Leadership Day in Numbers – impact report) 

As Figure 1 suggests, the event gathered more than 80k viewers across 100+ countries and territories, exceeding the target of  10k young people who have pre-registered in the month, leading to the event. 

On social media, the conference reached almost half a million people across Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, not including the over 100 Instagram posts and stories shared by the participants and speakers during and after the event.

These young people were met by some 50+ speakers and guests, from CEOs of large corporations in the private sector to country ministers from New Zealand and The Arab Republic of Egypt, and from social entrepreneurs to social media influencers talking about youth leadership, the future of work to entrepreneurship, sustainability and diversity and inclusion and more.

(Figure 2: A panel discussion on the topics of uncertainty and transformation. From left upper corner: Omar Issa – AIESEC Alumnus, Alexandra Robinson – Current President at AIESEC International, David Crawford – VP at NY Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Richard Lucht – Director at Herring Schuppener, Fabricio Sousa – Senior VP at McKinsey and Company, Dr. Rania A. Al-Mashat – Minister of International Cooperation of the Arab Republic of Egypt )

(Figure 3: The four agenda blocks of Global Leadership Day)

The 24h conference agenda was split into four blocks, as shown in Figure 3, streaming from four different locations: Sydney, Mumbai, Amsterdam, and Montreal. 

Additionally, the event allowed AIESEC to initiated or deepen the relationship with current or future like-minded partner organizations such as SAP Next-Gen – community partner of the event or PwC – present as a learning partner, launching the Digital Fitness App made available to all attendees.

A very likely 2nd edition on the horizon 

With average participant feedback of 8.6/10 and almost 90% of attendees answering affirmatively to the question “Would you participate in another edition of the Global Leadership Day?” – the conference is “very likely to return with a 2nd edition in 2021” – says Torben Dreusicke, part of the team organizing the event at AIESEC International.

Until next year, you can find more information about this year’s edition, together with the line-up of speakers, agenda, and recordings of the panels, keynotes, and workshops at https://www.global-leadership-day.com/ 

About AIESEC:

AIESEC is a global platform for young people to develop their leadership potential through international internships and volunteer opportunities. Since AIESEC was founded in 1948, the organization has engaged and developed over 1,000,000 young people globally through international placements and membership opportunities. AIESEC is a youth-run, non-governmental, and not-for-profit organization in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), affiliated with the UN DPI, member of ICMYO, and is recognized by UNESCO.

For more information, please contact:

Rares Man, Communications Responsible, raresm@ai.aiesec.org