One hundred international students come to Illinois Institute of Technology to participate in the Marmon Group 2001 Global Trade Institute (MGGTI)
Now through June 17, more than one hundred international students selected by their local Junior Achievement International (JAI) offices will arrive on the campus of Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago to take part in The Marmon Group 2001 Global Trade Institute, an intensive program designed to introduce them to the complexities of global trade. Hailing from more than 75 countries including Switzerland, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Israel and Argentina, these students will immerse themselves in learning and networking while living on the IIT campus.
“As our mission at IIT is to educate people from around the world for professional roles, we are pleased to collaborate with The Marmon Group of companies and with Junior Achievement International in hosting this conference on our main campus,” says Lew Collens, IIT President.
The Marmon Group 2001 Global Trade Institute (MGGTI) is sponsored by a grant from members of The Marmon Group companies. The Marmon Group, chaired by Robert Pritzker, is an international association of more than 100 autonomous manufacturing and service companies with collective sales of more than $6.5 billion. Member companies employ 40,000 people in 50 countries.
“The participating students are really the best their countries have to offer in terms of entrepreneurial leaders,” says Bruce Fisher, Director of the IIT Leadership Academy. “They are coming to MGGTI to accelerate the development of their leadership skills, and IIT faculty have really worked with JAI to put together a progressive program to help them do just that.”
The students, aged 16 to 20 years old, will participate in workshops on entrepreneurship, business, leadership, global trade, E-commerce, distribution systems and methods, legal contracts, ethics, patents and copyright laws and regulations, credit card transactions, web design, networking, venture capital, time management, sustainable environmental development, and private ownership. Workshops will be taught by faculty from Illinois Institute of Technology, as well as leaders from the Chicago business community and the Marmon Group.
“Often students leave school with academic knowledge of their professions, but later realize that the majority of careers require knowledge of how to start, operate and manage a business,” says David Loose, Vice President of Junior Achievement International. “This Institute experience will provide coaching and training to help start these students on a successful professional path.”
On June 11, Stedmann Grahm, author and motivational speaker, delivered an address entitled “Teens Can Make it Happen: Build Your Own Lifebrand,” at a luncheon on campus. Closing ceremonies will take place on June 16th. The speaker for the closing ceremony will be Leon Lederman, Pritzker professor of physics at IIT. Professor Lederman shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics (with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger) for the 1962 discovery that there are two kinds of neutrino, one associated with the electron and another with the muon.
While here, students will also get a chance to visit Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, the Chicago Board of Trade, the Sears Tower and Navy Pier. They will also enjoy a White Sox game.
Junior Achievement International is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that serves and supports Junior Achievement and Young Enterprise programs around the world. Junior Achievement programs promote entrepreneurism and economic self-determination while giving young people the skills they need to play and active role in today’s global economy.
Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting technological university awarding degrees in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, as well as architecture, psychology, design, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum prepares the university’s 6,200 students for leadership roles in an increasingly complex and culturally diverse global workplace.
