World Business Leaders Interaction in Higher Education: A novel experience

Gustavo Coronel,Kathleen Mathai

doi:10.18870/hlrc.v2i1.57

Abstract

This article describes a disruptive approach that offers Higher Education students and faculty the experience of learning from world business leaders and interacting with fellow members at their Institutions. The World Business Forum event was transmitted live to 36 Higher Education Institutions in 19 countries. The webcast and social media discussions around the event were used to create both a local University community and a global Laureate community. The World Business Forum is a two-day event, produced by HSM Global that is a platform for the ideas and trends that are shaping the future of business. In 2011 twenty business and political leaders spoke at the event. Through its partnership with HSM Laureate was able to broadcast the event to auditoriums on LIU campuses and to add live content and discussion around speakers, making the webcast relevant to an academic audience. Universities were provided with academic, technical and communication manuals to guide them through the implementation on campus. The network-wide webcast had participation of 36 Higher Education Institutions in 19 countries, and 56,400 viewers. The Laureate-hosted Facebook page generated 2,900 “likes,” 3,000 “posts” and 410,000 views and Twitter produced thousands of tweets from around the world. Both the participation on campuses and social media indicated that the webcast provided broad access to the event and created a global forum for students and faculty to participate in the event.

Highlights

Higher education is in a continuing migration from the Humboldt University model to one of community interaction and student collaboration that takes advantage of industry, private and public sector know-how (Wissema, 2009)
Laureate put together a large global team of technology, academic and business experts, to blend their experience in delivering small, localized webcasts with access to the World Business Forum in an academic context; they were given the task to extend the classroom using social media to create a global community around the event
As Laureate had never held a global event with a social media component, it was suggested that campuses monitor the media and social network traffic in their specific countries and provide any quantitative and qualitative feedback available

Summary

Introduction

Higher education is in a continuing migration from the Humboldt University model to one of community interaction and student collaboration that takes advantage of industry, private and public sector know-how (Wissema, 2009). Laureate is an international network of 58 accredited campus-based and online institutions of higher education, offering undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 675,000 students around the world. Laureate put together a large global team of technology, academic and business experts, to blend their experience in delivering small, localized webcasts with access to the World Business Forum in an academic context; they were given the task to extend the classroom using social media to create a global community around the event.

Results

Conclusion