Everything has started when LCP from Jönköping has been calling to all people in Sweden called Bengt Sjöstrand and then he found Mr. Bengt Sjöstrand, founder of AIESEC. He has invited him to have some lunch with us.

We were sitting at the restaurant waiting for him. I was a bit nervous, I didn’t know what to expect… All that we knew it was that he was 87 years old and he was coming to meet us! We, MC team of AIESEC in Sweden 2014-2015 with LCP from Jönköping, we were siting at the restaurant waiting for this man to come and suddenly we saw him through the window, some old man coming with his folder in his hand.

I was the first one in stretching my hand to him by saying hello, I couldn’t believe that he was there…

He has told as a lot of stories, but the most remarkable moments were when he said “Everything has started when I went abroad to US on my exchange program for studying and after I got back to Sweden, I just wanted send my friends abroad, as I really liked my experience… What I did, I just have called some of my friends who were from Europe on exchange in US who were already back to their countries and I asked them if they could find some job for my classmates from Sweden in administrative jobs. This is how everything has started” He said that point in time he could never believe that AIESEC will grow up so much! But yeah.. here we are:

– 90.000 Current Members
– Over 1 Million Alumni
– Over 200.000 Exchanges

Right now AIESEC is working with the largest enterprises, medium and small companies across the entire world. It is like always, you need to find the idea and the idea will be developed, but it should be someone starting it and here it was Mr. Bengt Sjöstrand.

Because of him thousands people’s lives have been changed and will be changed in the future.

It is just unbelievable, he is still working with other friends, with 87 years old he just has started his new company, giving out us flyers, business cards… No words! Also he said that he would love to see our annual report. Isn’t that amazing?
So this is the environment that we have around us in AIESEC.

I still remember me sitting there, frozen but full of happiness inside me.