“Knowing stories of overcoming in a much more adverse scenario helps you relativize yourself,” explains Juan Manuel Baixauli, organizer and designer of the first experiential university campus that the Chair of Business Culture of the University of Valencia held this past week. They have gone to Morocco, to the southern towns of Agdz and Erg Chegaga, whose landscapes are painted desert.
The businessman, president of Consultia Business Travel and founder of Viajes Geisha back in 1989, returns excited from an adventure that seeks to maximize the entrepreneurial potential of conscientiously chosen university students. Together with five other businessmen and six entrepreneurs, 15 young students selected from different disciplines, invited by the campus, have left.
“It’s been a real experience. If we all did this…” he reflects on the other end of the phone. We spoke with him a day after the return, when he is still savoring the intense journey. The farewell at the airport, he says, left everyone touched.
“It has been fascinating. We went to a nomadic house in an oasis where we asked where they came from. We made the students understand that they believe that they have the same possibilities as the rest, but realizing that you are privileged in certain things, it helps and that alone you can tell if you see it up close”, he wields.
They visited a Casbah, took a camel trek through the desert to see the sunset, rode a 4×4 to an oasis and celebrated their conclusions with drums.
That was the prop to talk about experiences with local entrepreneurs, as well as promote skills and attitude, keys to creating and leading a company, according to experts.
Miguel Ángel Juan Bello, from S2 Group; Ángela Pérez, from Health in Code; Juan Bueno from Myrentgo Mobility; and Guzmán López from Explorando el Kilimanjaro, make up the team of teachers that traveled with Baixauli, in addition to the former students of the Asier Rojo Chair from Arat Natura; Javier Ortizá of Quasar Dynamics; Giancarlo Matos, from mybook.io; Loreto Crespo of Genotype; the economist Jennifer Carmona and the nutritionist Lorena Jericó.
Likewise, the students belong to various degrees, such as Gastronomic Sciences, ADE-Law, Economics, Public Relations and digital marketing or International Business.
“It has been impressive, because we were looking for an atypical scenario, beautiful places with exchanges with people who have a store, for example, and for them it has been very impressive to combine it with mentoring sessions,” explains Baixauli, who says that the experiential campus aims to “the brightest students” share with businessmen for a week. “In the sessions, they asked, they cross-examined, they were interested in knowing more,” she says.
Bauxali picks up the baton from businessman Juan Roig, whom he cites in the conversation for being the first director that the Chair had and who always invites the business sector, in his few public speeches, to go out and recount the deeds they have to their credit.
“Since the beginning of the 21st century, we have understood that we have to go out and tell what we do. And on this trip we have done it: they have seen us as normal people, I told them what happened to me with their age, and they felt those problems were theirs We are a mirror”, adds this businessman who speaks of tenacity and resilience in the business career, when many times “all colors” are passed, but we need to sleep peacefully”. In the desert of Morocco or at home.
