International Student Week in Ilmenau is a student festival, held annually in the town of Ilmenau, located in the district of Ilm-Kreis, Thuringia, Germany.
Open to students of all faculties around the world. It was established in 1993 and has taken place every two years since then. At the conference participants discuss topics and experience a broad cultural range. On average about 350 participants from around 40-50 countries take part at the conference. During the festival there are also many lectures, the most well-known speakers are until this day Robert Jungk, Joseph Weizenbaum and Konrad Zuse.
Each festival is accompanied by many cultural side-events, such as concerts or cabarets. Those events mostly organized by various organisations nearby the Ilmenau University of Technology. The news coverage is made by the college radio station Radio hsf, which is broadcasting during the festivals around the clock since the first one in 1993.
ISWI also stands for the name of the organizing organization, Initiative solidarische Welt Ilmenau e.V., which is a non-governmental non-profit organization which aims to: "be an initiative for a more peaceful world - to promote mutual understanding and respect".
The organization ISWI is also member of the Network SORCE (Students ORganising Conferences Everywhere).
Famous quotes containing the words student and/or week:
“To be born in a new country one has to die in the motherland.”
—Irina Mogilevskaya, Russian student. “Immigrating to the U.S.,” student paper in an English as a Second Language class, Hunter College, 1995.
“Some days your hat’s off to the full-time mothers for being able to endure the relentless routine and incessant policing seven days a week instead of two. But on other days, merely the image of this woman crafting a brontosaurus out of sugar paste and sheet cake for her two-year-old’s birthday drives a stake through your heart.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)