Our school has been around for 18 years now and the team for learning as a way of studying has slowly gotten more known around the world. We as the international team sometimes get to travel in different academies abroad to visit them. Just last week we were visiting a team academy in Sierre, Switzerland. They just started the team for learning model there last fall so it’s a pretty new thing for them. There were 7 people of us who had the chance to travel to Switzerland to see it. I’d say enough people for a short trip like this!

We knew we would be there for somewhat 5 days because that is the longest that we could stay away from our teams at this point of the year. Earlier we had been using Skype to talk with the swiss and to arrange all the things needed. They made us a schedule that included also skiing at the Alps! We were pretty excited to see all the new teampreneurs and ofcourse the beautiful milieu of Switzerland.

We actually didn’t know where we would be staying during our stay but we had been talking with their head of international relations that they would accommodate us. When we got to Geneve’s airport, they came to pick us up with their minibus. When we arrived at the house, we were completely thrown away. They had a cottage at the mountains just for our use! It was amazing. You could see all the mountains and the village in the vale from there. Such a peaceful place.

First we had an introduction about our teams and academies. We presented the organization of Proakatemia and how we run it. We shared our projects and talked about our values and how they were formed in teams. We shared our revenues and how we came to achieving it (because Proakatemia’s revenue from all the teams was first time ever more than one million in 2017!). It was really interesting to see how a new academy looks like when it has just been started. We also shared the challenges and the success of our teams. We had a training sessions together and a birthgiving at the last day of our visit.

The hospitality that we received was definetly something to remember. Every morning they came to pick us up with cars and took us to their school (which was also this amazing old and dignified building) and then back to the cottage when needed. We ate fondue at one teampreneurs family’s restaurant together. They showed us the little villages and also the bigger village. We also drove up to the mountais to see the most beautiful view. We could see that our visit was appreciated and we were so welcomed. We had a lovely time and we changed some advices and experiences. We shared all that we could in such short amount of time.

Hopefully in the future we will have them for a visit at Proakatemia in Tampere. We talked about it already and we try to arrange it for this year. Maybe we can get them when Academic Adventures is going on or maybe in the fall. We also want to maintain our relations and develope it stronger. Our goal is to have a network that lasts also after all of us has graduated. But we definetly want them to experience the same hospitality that we experienced.

(https://hbr.org/2016/05/learn-to-love-networking)