Official guidelines are few, so business and people rely on information from the Internet and make their decisions to reduce the number of social contacts, the consumption and get ready for hard times.
Thus, IPM Business School faced a controversial situation:
• The countries of our international partners closed the borders, so our faculty members from abroad could not come to offline classes;
• Our Executive MBA students couldn’t travel from Minsk to Warsaw for the diploma defense at Kozminski University;
• There are no official restrictions or lock-down mode for the educational institutions. Otherwise, people are afraid to come in groups. IPM Business School cannot neglect the pandemic risks and keeps being socially responsible.
Interactive Technologies Open the Borders. Defending Executive MBA Diplomas via Video Conferencing: Done.
On March 13, 2020 Minsk IPM office hosted the defense of graduation projects of students of two Executive MBA groups. Traditionally, the defense takes place in Warsaw at Kozminski University, which has been temporarily closed since March 11 due to the pandemic.
Good news is that IPM Business School was ready for this challenge: an interactive educational video system has connected international commissions in Warsaw and in Minsk. It was a double challenge for our graduates, and they coped with it perfectly well.
Photo: EMBA Diploma Defence, Minsk-Warsaw
Changes to IPM’s Day-to-Day Work
The pandemic situation proved the benefits of IPM's introducing in the Y2015 Blended Learning and Cisco TelePresence technologies. Currently, we are able to provide the necessary mix of technologies and formats: offline, offline + online, up to the transition to pure distancing if necessary.
To date, we integrated IPM’s educational programs with advanced online services that allows interactivity during full-time classes between the teacher and the group located in the classroom and remote students.
A number of classes were conducted in mixed mode (offline + online). At the moment, all our classes take place in distance mode via Zoom.
IPM introduced as well the GET SMARTED project as a series of relevant educational programs developed on the principle of Blended Learning combined with the use of ZOOM-sessions.
GET SMARTED is not a “dialogue with the computer” or viewing webinars. It is interactive, including group discussions with other participants, case studies and assignments under the supervision of a teacher. The distance is physical, not social.
Research
The researchers of Beroc and IPM Research Center conducted a series of surveys of Belarussian business and population on the costs shortening and the reaction to the coronavirus pandemic.
On April 17, a new site Covideconomy.by was launched with up-to-date data on the development of the socio-economic situation in Belarus during the pandemic COVID19.
Our goal is to provide timely and reliable information to everyone who has to make economic decisions in conditions of high uncertainty.