On March 11, 2012 at the Vancouver Convention Centre more than 2,100 student delegates from around the world converged for the first World Model United Nations 2012 Conference(WMUN) to be held in Canada. WMUN is the largest travelling college-level Model UN conference in the world.
The Sauder School of Business played an important role in the conference, with several Sauder students acting as part of the event’s organizing committee. As a major sponsor of WMUN, Sauder’s Robert H. Lee Graduate School worked to bring together delegates from around the world in conversation about major social issues, as part of the school’s focus on engaging the world’s best students.
Professor Murali Chandrashekaran, Associate Dean, Professional Graduate Programs and Director, Robert H. Lee Graduate School at the Sauder School of Business, spoke at the WMUN opening ceremony on Sunday.
Rather than giving a formal speech, Chandrashekaran began a dialogue with delegates before the conference even began. Using social technologies, the school crowdsourced input from WMUN delegates, including UBC Master of Management students, to determine the direction of Chandrashekaran’s speech.
The school used several social media platforms to spread the word to delegates in advance of the opening ceremony, and to solicit answers to three central questions:
- What tools should business education provide to globally minded young leaders?
- What do you want graduate business schools to know about your goals and aspirations?
- What global challenge would you like to see on every business school's curriculum?
The resulting speech was very well received and succeeded in engaging delegates, with a number of students approaching Chandrashekaran afterwards to discuss the crowdsourcing concept and the ideas and themes contained in the speech, including the focus on leading change.
Chandrashekaran sees this as the beginning of an ongoing relationship between the Robert H. Lee Graduate School and WMUN, with the goal of having a presence at WMUN 2013.
