Second Place for German School Washington D.C.

Rashid H.

On Tuesday, May 10, the German School Washington D.C. was represented by Head of School Mrs. Palenzatis, project lead Mr. Zemek, and the students Viktoria B., Athena D. and Rashid H. at this year’s “Industrie und Handelskammer (IHK) World Conference” in Berlin. The delegation proudly accepted the second place prize of the biennial “German Schools Abroad Competition”, sponsored by the IHK. The DSW, as well as the DS Pretoria (1st Place) and the Deutsche Evangelische Oberschule Kairo (3rd Place), were kindly welcomed by the leadership of the IHK, Mr. Schweizer (President) and Mr. Wansleben (CEO) in the “Haus der Wirtschaft”.

We were very honored to be congratulated by the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the German Minister of State in the Federal Foreign Office, Prof. Dr. Maria Böhmer.

The IHK is an umbrella organization for 79 local chambers of commerce across Germany that represent the interests of German industry. In conjunction with the AHK (Auslandshandelskammer), an international business network for German companies abroad, the organization hosts a biennial competition where German Schools Abroad compete by presenting an extracurricular project that connects their students with their communities or the business world. Forty-three schools submitted projects, which were presented to panels of the IHK leadership. The DSW “Wirtschaftspreis” gives students in 10th grade the opportunity to apply their academic knowledge in developing their own business idea and business plan. This one-year-long project comes to a close at a presentation-event in front of a panel of jurors from the German Executive Roundtable of DC. These jurors are seasoned businessmen and women from a spectrum of fields who have helped the students along their business journey and critique them in this final event.

The DSW delegation received the 40,000 Euro prize and brings it back to DC for future investment in our school and  student experiences. The delegation also met with members of German industry and education in the hopes of new, strong relations for future cooperation. We were happy to see that there were many open ears in this crowd of 500 business people the DSW “Wirtschaftspreis”-Project. If you are inspired to read more about this success, please take a look at the posted articles  and the DSW’s video .

We would like express our sincere gratitude to Lufthansa for sponsoring the students’ flights to and from Germany.