Kim Jensen

Software Engineer

IAESTE

IAESTE, the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience, was founded in London in 1948 as an organisation under UN. In the post World War II time, International and cultural understanding was thought to be important to prevent new horrors. IAESTE was founded by 12 countries and has since grown to cover most of the globe, with more than 80 member countries currently involved and new coming in every year. In January 2005, the organisation was disolved to form the new IAESTE A.s.b.l.

:: Top ::

Denmark

Since April 1993, I have been involved with IAESTE Denmark, which was when I was at the first semester at DTU.

At first, I got involved with Marketing, but quickly shifted to IT - which suited me much better. Over the years I help setup network, computer systems and design their internal database and I also designed some of the first webpages.

However, a big change occured in January 1998. When the International organisation asked if someone would like to take over the responsibility for the International website, iaeste.org. I received this challenge and decided to devote my time to this and thereby stopping most of my duties for IAESTE Denmark.

:: Top ::

International

When asked if I would take over responsibility of the International website, iaeste.org, in January 1998. My first thoughts was that an International website should be under the supervision of an International team. So during the year, I put together a rough draft of the website, and invited the webteams from other IAESTE organisations in Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany and Norway. The first annual meeting of what would later be known as the IDT, Internet Development Team, took place in Copenhagen in October 1998.

During this meeting, the IDT became a reality. A team focused on delivering Internet based services to the International IAESTE community. The IT services involved the public website, iaeste.org. The Friends of IAESTE Network, The IAESTE IntraWeb, e-mail aliases for all members as well as public and private mailinglists. All of these services has grown in size and importance for IAESTE over the years and the importance has been recognized by the International community in such a degree that the IDT has been holding training sessions each year during their Annual Conferences since January 2001.

Building a team responsible for all these IT services in my spare time has not been an easy task. Running a team of 15-20 people from almost as many countries, having a budget about the same size as some of the smaller IAESTE countries has meant that my spare time has been heavily consumed by IAESTE. Which lead to me resigning from the post as IDT Coordinator in January 2006, after stepping down, I served as senior developer on the IntraWeb and advisor for almost 2 years, until I left the team completely, in the Autumn 2007.

:: Top ::