A new conference takes shape at Queen’s, exploring the interplay between business, government, and policy issues.
Seeing a gap in interdisciplinary conferences at the University, Co-chairs and Directors of Queen’s Conference in Business and Governance (QCBG) Borna Najafi, Gabriel De Guzman, Gillian Miller, Leo Weber, and Nicholas Ward, all ArtSci ’24, held the first ever iteration of their conference from Nov. 10 to 11 at the Isabel Bader Centre.
Multiple notable speakers including President of the Treasury Board Anita Anand, ArtSci ’89, graced the stage to discuss the central conference theme of business and governance in the digital era.
“We found most of the big conferences being held on campus, they’re not really publicized to Arts students as much, they don’t know about them, they don’t know that they can even access them,” Miller said in an interview with The Journal.
“As Arts students recognizing the intersection between business, finance, and government, we wanted to bring the students together, no matter what program they’re in, to be able to have a forum to learn more about these important topics,” she said.
Giving students exposure to new fields was a crucial goal of QCBG. By having multiple speakers and a networking event, it was Weber’s hope students would understand the different career paths people had in business and government.
Understanding the obstacles faced and the career journey taken by any given speaker was a crucial learning opportunity for Arts and Science students.
“A big thing we realized [was] Arts students are very curious, very open to learning, and are always looking for new opportunities,” De Guzman said in an interview with The Journal. “Getting people talking and thinking initiates the thought of what they’re going to do in the future.”
Miller explained a classroom might not necessarily be focused on discussing specific career paths She was proud of QCBG’s ability to bring together delegates from a wide range of backgrounds such as health sciences, politics, economics, and computer science.
Starting a new conference held some challenges, and De Guzman noted finding sponsors took a significant amount of outreach and many applications had to be filled out.
“We know Queen’s had a lot of opportunities to fund certain clubs and initiatives. We applied to a lot of them, but a lot of them got denied most of the time,” De Guzman said.
“That was a little frustrating on our part, we wanted to put on a great event, and it required a lot of financial support, especially from Queen’s, the institution that’s in our name. We hope for future years recognizing this is quite a significant conference and a lot of students benefited from it, Queen’s will have a little bit more involvement.”
Next year, QCBG’s goal is to continue bringing influential and impactful people to Kingston. While this year’s co-chairs are graduating, hiring for the conference will be taking place this term. The new executive team will have the opportunity to shape the next year’s theme.
Tags
Business, conference, Government, Networking
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