More than 100 students took part in the seventh Global Communications Conference and the awards presentation ceremony hosted by the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (Admaf) recently.

The three-day event marked a full year of activity by participating students and lecturers, and was hosted by Zayed University from May 25 to 27.

Starting in 2003, the Global Communication public relations (PR) programme (GlobCom) is a worldwide education project that links university students from 11 universities in 11 countries, in a competition to produce the best PR strategy and develop their public relations skills.

For the past two years, the final conference has taken place in the UAE, thanks to the generous support of Admaf which is supporting the overall programme as part of its educational mission.

This year, the theme of this educational project was ‘cultural communication’ and the students, grouped into eight international teams,  used electronic communication to create a strategic plan for the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Festival, Admaf’s flagship annual event, this year held from April 21 to May 2.

This included communicating via the chat rooms of the GlobCom platform global-communication.org, by e-mail and by Internet phone.

The objectives of the GlobCom programme are to create a real-life situation where the students must use online tools to work together as an international team and develop a global PR solution in the same manner as an international PR agency.

They must work to overcome the cultural barriers and learn to recognise the strength of their culturally diverse mix.

Each team will learn to understand the importance of implementing their global strategy locally, and will develop a professional presentation to be delivered to the judges at the end of year conference. Each year more than 120 new students take part in the project.

The students made their team presentations to the judging panel, which is made up of university alumni and industry professionals, who assessed the strategies and announced the winning team at an event at the Abu Dhabi Health & Fitness Club.

Hoda Al Khamis Kanoo, founder of Admaf, attended the awards presentation to deliver a keynote address recognising the great achievements made by all of the students.

Kanoo was joined by Dr Volker Stoltz, president of the Global Communication Institute, former CEO of Shandwick Europe and currently professor of international PR at Erfurt University in Germany.

“Admaf is proud to be supporting the GlobCom programme, a wonderful educational initiative that encourages students from around the world to work together and learn from each other, and which prepares them for the realities of working in a global business environment,” said Hoda Al-Khamis Kanoo.

“The GlobCom Awards recognises the work produced by the students throughout the year, and promotes the international cooperation and cultural exchange between students,” she added.

“It also gives them the chance to develop their skills in cultural communications, and by working to a real live brief, gives them first-hand experiences that they can apply upon entering the workforce.

“I hope all the students have enjoyed the experience and, of course, their visit to Abu Dhabi, and wish them every success with their future careers.”

The theme of this year’s symposium was the role of social media and networking in public relations. – TradeArabia News Service