History Book of BEST
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In the meanwhile the group was strengthened and its motivation didn’t go down and they continued their BEST dream.
They contacted LBG Naples and two guys of them, Antonio Bellitto and Carmelo Marchese, were invited to attend its Autumn Course in September of 2007, where they have the possibility to feel the BEST spirit, learn about its organization and its practises.
In December of 2007 the group decided to apply again and this time there were good news: they were accepted as Observer!
In January of 2008 they started working and almost few days later they received the proposal to organize the first event: Spring Alpine Regional Meeting in April of 2008.
It was crazy but they accepted and hard times came...
The Regional Meeting was great thanks also to University and its Nurse LBG Naples. The participants enjoyed Sicily and its wonderful coffee-breaks.
The history continued with courses and other events that they attended and on November
9th of 2008 they became officially Baby Members of BEST at the Presidents’ Meeting in
Bucharest.
Now the group is growing and they have an office at University, great will to do and new ideas and projects are coming, especially their first Spring Course in May of 2009 and the
Italian BEST Engineering Competition.
Special thanks for supporting this dream go to the Rector of University, Francesco Tomasello, the University delegate Anna Murdaca and the Dean of Faculty of Engineering, Signorino Galvagno.
Story of LBG Milano
The beginning of LBG MILANO: The idea was born in 1995, when Giovanni Brianza, a student of mechanical engineering at the Politecnico di Milano returned from a European Week in the Ecole Centrale of Paris. Thanks to a dedicated group of students and with the support of LBG Turin, LBG Milano got organized and at the 1997 GA achieved the status of Baby Member!
The following year, at the 1998 PM, LBG Milano became a Full Member of BEST! Thus begun The Glorious History of LBG MILANO!!
The Glorious History of LBG MILANO: Starting from the very first course in 1998, Innovation in Telecommunications, LBG Milano established a reputation for the strong motivation, style and creativity of its members. These great qualities counterbalanced the ever-present financial struggles, which lead to a quite dramatic history of suspensions and re-admissions
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from the Full Member status.
Happily, those troubled years did not crush the motivation of a strong working group, which in 2006 was able to start a Reveling New Era!
The Reveling New Era of LBG MILANO: The 1996 technological course, “When Imagination
Comes True: Big Infrastructures Made in Italy”, marked the beginning of the new era. LBG Milano expanded up to 25 active members and hosted even more events in the following year, like the Alpine ReJAM and the 2007 Symposium on Education Engineering demand and offer in Europe, in collaboration with EduCO.
Those efforts were highly rewarded, for at the 2007 GA LBG Milano won the LBG achievement of the year award!!!
Strong on this motivational boost, LBG Milano scored also a successful 2008, thanks to the iBEC 2008 project and a ground-breaking learning event, the Autumn Course One, Two,
TRIZ! Innovation in a Wiz!
Future Days: LBG Milano has definitely a full schedule for 2009 too, as it is planning on organizing one Autumn Course and housing a TRAM!
LBG Milano, as an ever growing group of open minded, driven students, is here to work harder and harder to spread the BEST-Spirit at Politecnico and all through Europe!!
Story of LBG Moscow
Once upon a time... or actually in July 2006 two unacquainted persons Sergey Koulikov and Anna Butorova found out from their friends about BEST and decided that the time has come for Bauman Moscow State Technical University to join this organization.
All the needed documents were prepared and sent, and after a month of waiting, on 14th of august 2006, at 2 a.m. Anna Butorova got a call. The calling person was Bartek Lipnicki,
President of International Board 2006/2007. It took some time for Anna to understand that from that moment an Observer group in Moscow started its long journey on the road called BEST.
In autumn 2006 we felt BEST spirit for the first time - we had CE with Ecole Centrale Paris and in March of 2007 second part of exchange took place in Moscow, as the result of this CE we have new international happy family :). At the same time we took the challenge to organize the longest Jamaican RM ever – Spring RM 2007 in Moscow and we are still happy to see our positive orange scarves on different BEST events :).
That spring, in the tents of GA 2007 in France to our big happiness we got the status of baby member of BEST.
Next year we organised our first WC07 “LASER: Light And Snow Entertaining Researches”,
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but we overestimated our possibilities and didn’t manage to make it good, so it wasn’t accounted as an educational course, but we didn’t give up! BEST spirit didn’t leave us and after we recruited new generation, we got ready for the new challenges. In November 2008 we organized biggest Russian LEC in our University: 88 participants, 6 hours of competitions,
22 organizers made this event unforgettable for students and BEST members.
Following months we spent preparing our Spring Course 09 “Take the lead over the future. Innovations in automation”. We worked hard and did our BEST to make this event perfect. And we’ve succeeded! This course was unforgettable!
At the moment our motivated and strong team is ready for new adventures. We are looking forward to new ideas and events (of course, biggest ever :)) In September we will celebrate LBG Moscow birthday – three years since we are the part of BEST family and we are not going to stop! We are growing! It seems like the baby has become a grown-up, so we hope to become full members of BEST in Lviv. We do believe we deserve it!
Story of LBG Nancy
Birth thanks to Grenoble
Our history begins after moving on to this century... At that time some students from Nancy decided to create an LBG in our wonderful university, which is composed by 7 faculties (called engineering schools in France) and 1 prep school. The founding group came from the ENSGSI engineering school; we found some creators names like Souhail Bouatia, Any Sounthon. They both came from a Grenoble prep School called CPP (the BEST). Indeed, at the beginning we decided to collaborate with Grenoble, who is an LBG since the very creation of BEST (and where the first GA had taken place!)... During a few years, we had been working together in close collaboration (which continues nowadays!), and then we started to set up a real LBG in Nancy...
Step by step till Full Member in 2003
Actually we became observer in 2001 during the PM 2001 in Madrid. At that time, we were allowed to go on the adventure in the BEST world. So we worked harder and harder to reach the Graal, the baby member status. It s happened in France, a very nice symbol for us, because we were helped a lot by the others French LBGs like Grenoble, ENSAM and some others. We officially obtained the Baby member status during GA France 2002!
So we were able to organize our first public event. And we successfully did it during the summer of 2002. The topic was the production of glass. Then another event in 2003 about innovation has been organized, each year in a different faculty. they was so nice that we obtained the final full member status during PM 2003 in Belgium, which is also a great symbol for the LBG as our nurse was Ghent, who gave us quite good knowledge transfer since our first starts
Our life and improvements
During a few years, the LBG managed to develop and organize successful many events, especially under the presidency of Nicolas Pelletier and Thomas Lales, who collaborated with
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many members in order to work hard and party harder! Thanks to the integration of the LBG in the lowlands region in 2005, we had more exchanges with Belgian and Dutch BESTiess. Thus we organised a French Christmas eve in December 2005 with people from Louvain la Neuve and Paris.
A few time after it, the LBG got a year of doubts and of financial problem, but thanks to the high motivation of all his members, we managed to get back on tracks, and in 2007 the first motivation week end with Louvain-La-Neuve has been organized, such as the first French
Lowlands regional meeting in France too, just before a French speaking meeting (working event with all the French speaking groups!)... Later on this year, the winter course about glass and steel technology went very well, recruiting many participants as BESTies, and we had our first CE with Brussels ULB and Gdansk! Nowadays, the LBG is still working hard and has many projects!! His members are involved in international committees, trainers, active in the French collaboration (LBG Nancy is a founding member of Alfa Canal Historic and still very active in it, participated to all the national events such as the organization of the GA, or the many Repas de noel, etc)...
If we wanted to describe in one word the LBG, it would be collaboration: due to his location, the LBG is the perfect place for exchanges between French, Belgium, and maybe you in the future!
Story of LBG Naples
In Anno Domini 1994, LBG Naples was founded......How did it happen? This is the story........
Two different groups of guys from the same University read an article on a newspaper. This article spoke about a new idea from the north Europe, about a student association. This association had a group in Italy, in Turin..... At the same time, the two different groups thought...Why not? Why don’t we have the opportunity to share our culture among other Europeans? Both groups called LBG Turin, for some info. LBG Turin gave all the information they were searching for and informed both the groups of the existence of the other.
Finally in February 1994, in classroom “N” (as Napoli) of the Engineering Faculty, the two groups, the first with Camillo Aladino and Ferdinado Bonifacio, and the second with Antonio
Scognamiglio, Marco Sacchettino and Biase Celano gave birth to our Local BEST Group of Naples. Until BEST Napoli didn’t have a Constitution Act, the president was the oldest of the group, Camillo Aladino. After the Constitution Act was written the first president was elected,
Ferdinando Bonifacio.
In 1994 our group applied for Baby Membership, and in May 1995 in Patras achieved full membership and at the same time Margerita Bruni, who was representing our LBG, was elected as Secetary of the VIII Board. In June 1995 was organized the first event of BEST
Napoli, the FIGA (First Italian General Assembly), in which we hosted delegates from all
Italian Groups: Turin, Rome and Naples. In September 1995 there was our course, its topic was: Methods and practical tools for the improvement of process management. It was just the beginning!
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What did we organize during these 15 years??? 10 Summer Courses, 2 Spring Courses,
2 Autumn Course, 4 Cultural Exchange, 1 Training, 2 iBEC Local Round, 1 Italian General Assembly, 1 Regional Meeting. In the 2004 we hosted the Board Meeting, as souvenir the board presented us a baseball bat that was signed by the International board of that time and by the organizers. That has been passed down president to president until today and it will be passed down until the end of the days!!! In 2007 we became Nurse of Messina.
In 2008 we have organized the first iBEC (Italian BEST Engineering Competition) with all the others Italian LBGs. In 2009 we wanted to improve our dedication to BEST and grow as
LBG, that’s why in the first four months we have already organized a local round of iBEC, a Regional Meeting; in April we will have a Cultural Exchange with LBG Porto, in May the iBEC National Round, and in September an Autumn Course.
But, you know what? We think that the highest achievement of LBG Naples has been to arrive after 15 years and discovering that the BEST SPIRIT is still alive; no matter what happened in the past and no matter what the future will bring us! The flame will keep on burning! After 15 years we’re more than those 4 braves that created it, we look at our past thanking people before us for what they’ve done, but now we’re thirsty for discovering new experiences and to catch new challenges, but above all, to make people discover how this association can light up their lives!!!!
Story of LBG Nis
Date: January, 12th, 2007
Time: 08:08 PM
Place: Zafa’s old residence
Suddenly, one cell phone started ringing and irreversibly disturbed the ordinary routine. “Hello? Dusan? This is Bartosz Lipnicki, the President of BEST International! Congrats, guys, you’re accepted!” And the journey has begun!
It’s not easy to aboard the BEST ship. You have to prove your determination and capacity. We tried a couple of times, didn’t succeed but also didn’t despair. On the 3rd attempt, the Force was with us. The BEST Council acknowledged our attitude and granted us the title of BEST Observer, declaring the start of a new era for the humble students’ life in Nis. A new era and a new hope?
And then the time had come for the first challenges. Recognizing the amazing potential of a new group, the Council gave us the task (coded as ITCdm) given only to members so far. And we fulfilled it, thus impressing the Council and making our masters from Skopje proud. On both pleasure, we have gone one step forward and become the Baby member on
November, 10th, 2007. Now, we were ready for the REAL TASK: SC’08. Our group has grown and improved in order to be able to deal with such a challenge. Powerful we have become,
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but to the dark side of the Force still haven’t slipped. And the job was done. And two more after it (RM & JF). Now our strength completely flows from the Force (in some books also known as BEST Spirit).
We feel there is a Full member’s chair for us in the BEST Council. And we got it in the Assembly in Budapest, 2009. The Force is with us!
Story of LBG Novi-Sad
Roots of LBG Novi Sad lead us back to the September 19th 2005 when several students of
Faculty of Technical Sciences and Faculty of Sciences decided to form a group which will later be known as an Observer group Novi Sad. Among the founders were Ivana Krsmanovic (president), Svetlana Kecojevic (secretary), Tatjana Petrov (treasurer), Bojana Mojic (vicepresident) and Janko Micic (vice president) - the first board of newly born group. On the PM in Ljubljana (2005) a group in Novi Sad was granted the status which boosted the interested in BEST at the University of Novi Sad and helped the founding mothers to spread the ideas of BEST among the other students of the University.
After the inner reorganization which took part in February 2006 the decision was made! The observer Novi Sad was about to organize its first event: the regional meeting in Zobnatica
(April 2006)! The excellent organization of this event was a turn point which helped us to proudly receive the status of BEST baby member on GA in Zagreb (2006).
In March 2007 the first academic event was organized! The title of the event was “Brainspotting” and its topic was about the artificial intelligence and possible usage in modern telecommunication systems. Thanks to a new members who gave their last quarks of energy for the cause of BEST, the positive grade was obtained which helped our little group to finally achieve the aim for which we struggled almost two years - a full membership in BEST.
The second academic course was organized from the end of September till the beginning of October 2008. It gathered more than twenty students from all parts of Europe Actually, all students who participated in this course were supposed to design their own ceramic pieces which were integrated in the fountain at the centre of campus of the University of Novi Sad!
After the three years of existence, the LBG Novi Sad finally managed to organize something which boosted its reputation in the international BEST and made this course a turn-point for future courses.
In October 2008, elections were made and some of the oldest members decided that it is time to retire and let younger generations lead the LBG Novi Sad ship through unexplored areas towards the new storms and sunny shores.
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Story of LBG Paris Ecole Centrale
The LBG of Centrale Paris was one of the founding members in Berlin in 1989, so this year we celebrate our 20th anniversary just as BEST does.
You usually stay at this French school for a mere two years, which implies that our team changescompletelyeverysecondyear!Soyouwon’tfindoldfoxeshere,butrathermotivated newbies, who get to know BEST in the first and manage the LBG in the second year!
Lately we tend to have a lot of international members, actually this year we only have a few French ones... Some of these exchange students already know BEST from their home university, and some continue as soon as they get back! After all, maybe it’s only Centrale Paris where you can run for president after being in BEST for 6 months...
There are a number of things this LBG has to be proud of: we could cite the funny stories of our alumni, show up with our mascot, Scooby-Doo, but the undisputed highlight of our history is our Spring Course of 2005, when we packed a plane with our participants, and left to... ...Reunion in Africa.
Story of LBG Paris Polytechnique
LBG Paris, Ecole Polytechnique is the last of Paris LBGs. It was founded in 1999 and became Observer in GA Sweden in 2000. Later on it became a baby member of BEST in PM2000 Budapest, and full member in PM2001 Toledo. That is for the short story...
From the birth until now...
It all started when some students from a local student club heard about BEST. They were promoting international activities, and when they saw what BEST could bring our university, they were motivated enough to give birth to a new LBG in Paris.
Their enthusiasm made the group grow fast, from a bunch of students promoting international mindset to an organised group regularly organising a course and internal events.
It took some time to get used to BEST practices and getting the BEST spirit, but it was definitely worth it and by becoming a full member the LBG could contribute to BEST as much as BEST was contributing to it.
Nowadays LBG Polytechnique gathers around 15-20 members each year, working hard to develop the LBG and BEST to the higher level.
Some achievements...
Even though Polytechnique is one of the youngest of French LBGs, we can be proud of ourselves.
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Together with other French LBGs, Polytechnique organised 2 General Assemblies. The first one in 2002 held on ENSAM and Polytechnique campuses, and was prepared through
“Yellow-Banana” events; “Yellow-Banana” standards were a festive alternative to the “Green apple” quality standards valid in that time. The second GA was organised in 2007, located in
Paris and Cluny. That one was the first GA where people slept in tents, and they liked it!
Besides those two very big events, LBG Polytechnique organises every year a Spring Course, and regularly internal events (1 Regional Meeting, one TrainShop, and 2 WorkShops so far). And it was in Polytechnique that BEST identity and BEST membership system were designed, before being approved in the following General Meetings.
Story of LBG Patras
Local BEST Group Patras was founded in 1991! In GA 1991 at Paris, we became a baby member of BEST; next year, in GA 1992 at Helsinki and Tallinn Patras became a full member of BEST and during that summer we organised the first of the many courses to come.
Throughout the years, students from Patras, kept joining our group, and we became stronger, motivated and got ready to take more challenges!
So, grabbing this chance, our LBG organized successfully 2 Regional Meetings, in 2003, Greek-Italian meeting, and in 2009 - South Regional Meeting. As a peak, we fulfilled our expectations, by organizing the General Assembly of BEST in 1995 in Patras.
So comes along the successful story of Patras! For 18 years now, we have been hosting BESTies among Europe in Patras who met our hospitality, and more students from Patras, have visited numerous events organized in Europe.
Until now, 2009, we have organised 16 courses, 7 Cultural Exchanges, one Carnival Week, Internal Events, motivation weekends and local events for students of our University.
So much experience and BEST spirit in this LBG, guarantee that LBG Patras should be your destination!
We always look forward hosting you in Patras.
Story of LBG Porto
LBG Porto, a place of traditions
LBG (Local BEST Group) Porto was born in 1996 when Coimbra contacted FEUP (Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto) students union and told us about BEST and explained us the idea behind it. Then, two students that heard the idea thought: “Hey, this is really
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great. Let’s start an LBG”! And puff, LBG Porto was born!!!! After that we started to plan our first event in Porto. It was a WorkShop and it was 1997 (WS Porto 1997).
The following year, GA Romania was the second best place to be as Porto (number one place) made it to the top by becoming full member of BEST. And we had Coimbra, our nurse, to thank for it.
Because Porto is a city of traditions, as seen in our Porto wine cellars, in that same year, LBG
Porto started another tradition: Summer Courses. After holding our first Summer Course that year, our dear “guinea pigs” (participants) thanked us for - and we quote - “The time of our lives”. In the aftermath of the event we could only draw one conclusion: We had to “do it again and again and again....”
After making Summer Courses a tradition in Porto, we wanted to start another tradition: Internal Events. In order to make Porto a reference in Europe we started to bring BESTies for events in Porto hoping they would spread the news that Porto is the place to be. So, after
WS, we got our first Regional meeting in 2002 and we were so good that Iberians made us apply to our biggest event until today, PM Portugal 2004. It was in Porto, in cooperation with the other Portuguese LBGs who worked just as hard as we did, making the event an amazing success. We became such fans of internal events those two years later we organised beRICHER IV (money money money....). Now, every year we have an internal event and you never know what will be next.....
But coming back to traditions, 2004 was a great year because we also started a new one: Engineering Competitions. And this one is so addicting that we have two each year for our students. We are already on our 10th edition. And in between, we organised three BNECs
(BEST National Engineering Competitions) making the 2008 final in Porto. This year we started a new concept: a 24H Engineering Competition! It’s something like 24H of Le Mans but 1000 times better!!!!!!
We also have another tradition, the oldest and most important one in our LBG. Generations pass, people change but something stays the same: in Porto we are very warm and welcoming people and we always make our guests have the time of their lives here.
So, do you want to know why Porto is the BEST place to be? Do you want to try out our traditions?
If the answer is YES, you know where to find us ;)
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Story of LBG Reykjavik
LBG Reykjavík is the first and only LBG in Iceland. LBG Reykjavík became an observer group of BEST at PM2005 Ljubljana. At GA2006 Zagreb it became a baby member of BEST and finally a full member of BEST at GA2007 France. Today the group is a full member under monitoring of LBG Copenhagen. From the birth until now...
It all started when 2 students from the University of Iceland went to a SUNTU (Student Unions of Nordic Technology Universities) in Trondheim back in 2005, where they heard of
BEST for the first time. A group was formed in august that year, and in September the group was approved as an observer group of BEST. Seven founding members went to Jamboree in
Macedonia, and came back to Iceland filled with BEST spirit and highly motivated. Eager to get started spreading the BEST spirit, and introducing Iceland to fellow BEST members, the group applied for hosting the Nordic Regional Meeting, and did so in March 2006.
The following summer, the observer group held a 2 week summer course, playing with power. With a growing reputation in BEST the group was awarded with a baby member status at GA2006 in Zagreb. The first learning event hosted by LBG Reykjavík was in March
2007, Drink your energy - from water to electricity. At GA2007 France the LBG became a full member of BEST, and the first challenge as a full member was hosting the TrainShop bePRROUD in October 2007.
Although young, LBG Reykjavik has had its up’s and downs. We have been one of the biggest LBG in the Nordic Region, and gone down to hardly any active members. But looking ahead, we are eager to continue building up a steady group.
Story of LBG Riga
The birth of BEST-Riga goes back to 1993! It was a time when a group of enthusiastic students from Riga Technical University decided to join and get more familiar with the rest of the Europe. At this crucial time in our countries history ability to travel, to see the Western Europe with its level of development, to learn other cultures and exchange information was a main motivation for getting to know BEST.
Some of the people who brought BEST ideas to Riga were Armands Cakss, Janis Ozolins,
Gvido Teteris, Maris Eglite and many, many more. Those people really did some amazing work creating our LBG! In 1993 they organized the very first BEST summer course in Riga: “Recycling Cycle”. It was quite incredible that they pulled that off, since there was no money for it, but thanks to the university, who really helped with providing accommodations and professors, some sponsors and huge enthusiasm (or maybe lets just call it BEST spirit) the course turned out to be a great success! Just one more a little fact about it, there were 90 applications for it, which was quite a big number for the Baby LBG back than. But the most important part surely was acceptance of our LBG as a Full Member in 1994 at GA Turin where Ieva Caune presented us to the rest of the BEST world. But being accepted by BEST
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