Archive for September/2008

27/09/2008 – IE Universidad

"Estamos creando una universidad que en el plazo de diez años será una de las instituciones de educación superior más prestigiosa de Europa, en línea con las cotas alcanzadas por nuestra escuela de negocios". Así lo puso hoy de manifiesto el Rector de IE Universidad, Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño, durante la apertura de curso de esta universidad, el primer año académico desde que el IE presentara su nuevo modelo de universidad internacional el pasado mes de abril.

En su alocución, el Rector señaló que IE Universidad es "una institución privada con una misión publica: la de formar ciudadanos globales, emprendedores, comprometidos con la sociedad y sólidamente formados en sus áreas de conocimiento". En este sentido subrayó que además de ofrecer programas innovadores y orientados hacia el mercado, todos los graduados de IE Universidad se formarán en humanidades y en Management debido a que, de acuerdo con el Rector, "las humanidades son el cemento que integra el resto de los conocimientos y la base para formar personas, en su sentido más completo". Añadió que detrás de cualquier buena práctica profesional hay una buena práctica gerencial, "y por ello los futuros graduados de IE Universidad tendrán una formación equivalente a la de un MBA; serán emprendedores en sus propias disciplinas, transformadores de su profesión y generadores de valor y bienestar sociales".

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Discurso de Zaryn Dentzel, fundador de Tuenti, imparte la lección
magistral

By:  Michael Aldous

              Michael Aldous is the Associate Director of International Communication at IE Business School. 

At the beginning of Heart of Darkness Marlow says –

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea — something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. . . ."

His discussion revolves around the arrival of the Romans in Britain and more generally the rise of the roman empire. Yet it is also the beginning of Conrad’s damning indictment of the ‘idea’ of imperialism that evolves throughout the book. The idea becomes all consuming, all is forgiven in pursuit of the idea. Like the Crusaders before them, taking the cross of imperialism (the White man’s burden) absolved you from your past sins and effectively shed you of accountability for all you would do in the name of the idea. As the plot and the journey up the assumed Congo river unravels, Marlow finally meets with Kurtz, a man who is on the point of total mental and physical ruination by the reality of the idea. Supposedly a great, cultured man, with a new more humane approach to managing empire, at the sharp end of its reality his understanding of its true meaning subsumes him.

Perhaps this week we have also started to see the end of a journey. The great idea propogated in the 80′s, blithely summed up by Gordon Gecko as "greed is good" has been severely tested. Greed and growth have become the mantra of the capitalist system, all consuming, everything forgiven in their pursuit. Yet as the bloated, ruined bodies of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Meryl Lynch and their ilk, stumble out of the financial jungle perhaps they too are muttering "the horror, the horror", as realisation dawns on what has been created. I rather think not, but it would be nice to imagine some degree of wider awareness has now permeated the minds of the Masters of the Universe.

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