What began in 1948 as an organisation to help develop "friendly relations" between member
countries is now a global association with activities in 89 different countries and
territories.
The founding members of AIESEC started to build the organization between
1946 - 1948, but a clear identity was defined in 1948 and later in 1949 at the
Stockholm Congress.
89 students participated in the Exchange Program in
1949 and Exchange was defined as the core activity of the organization. In the
coming years more and more countries joined the network and
AIESEC became global in a very short period by being present on all the
continents.
The number of students and organizations involved in the exchange program grew rapidly and
constantly, reaching
2467 exchanges by the end of 1960 and 4232 by the end of 1970.
Seminars were first introduced as part of trainees' reception experiences, in a proposal from
AIESEC in Germany in
1961. It was well received by other countries, and a general set of seminar topics
to be addressed was proposed and accepted. They were mainly economic in nature, and for the first
time AIESEC was addressing specific issues in its activities-stated clearly in a non-political way.
At the
1974 International Congress in Bordeaux, an important motion was passed: the
minimum length of an Exchange traineeship had to be 6 weeks. This measure improved the quality of
our Exchanges.
In
1976 an International Theme Programme was established that focused all
international, regional, and local seminars on specific topics. This idea continued and grew
through various stages.
After this the focus of the organization was on addressing global themes besides the
traditional Exchange Program. Themes like International Trade, Management Education, Sustainable
development, Entrepreneurship and Corporate Responsability were discussed at local, national and
global seminars.
In the
late 90's the discussion about the relevance of the organization brought the
Exchange Program on the main agenda and more and more effort was put in ensuring growth in this
area.
Information systems were developed to make the process faster and easier. Insight I was
launched in
1997 and Insight II in
2001. As the focus of the organization was the eXchange program again, the number
of exchanges started to grow.