User:Jbcalejo/IACES

The International Association of Civil Engineering Students (IACES) is a non-profitable organization with the main aim of connecting civil engineering students in the world. In the beginning, it was just focused in spreading through Europe, but soon it grew all over to other continents. At the moment there is representation of IACES in Europe, Central America, Africa and Asia.

The official language of IACES is English.

History of IACES
In 1989, students from Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and other European countries decided to meet in the University of Delft (Netherlands) for an international meeting with civil engineering students. This meeting was later called ACCESS - Academic Congress of Civil Engineering Students. During a week, this activity consisted in visiting construction sites, attending to seminars related to civil engineering and, of course, sharing knowledge and culture.

As a result of this activity, came up the idea of creating the International Association of Civil Engineering Students - IACES. The spirit of it would be the same as in the first activity: developing connection between students all over Europe (and later, all over the world) to share knowledge and culture.

Since then, IACES grew bigger in and outside Europe. In 1999 the first website was created and in 2005 the first edition of IACES Reader, the yearly magazine, was produced.

Structure
At an international level, IACES is represented by the General Board (GB), which is responsible for establishing the connection and network between Local Committees (LCs), local representation of IACES in Universities. There can also be a person or a group of people interested in forming a Local Committee, but that didn't achieve the minimum requirements for it. These are called Contact Persons (CPs).

To support the General Board, a Local Committee is elected in the General Assembly of Representatives (GAR) as the Coordination Center (CC).

The Alumni Club is the group of former member of IACES that are now graduated. These provide a good support to the continuation of IACES. Also, these normally are part of the Account Verifying Committee (AVC).

General Board
The General Board is composed by 5 people: President, 1st Vice-President, 2nd Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary. These people are elected during the GAR and have to be from at least 4 different countries.

Local Committee
Local Committees (LCs) are local representatives of IACES in Universities. They have an autonomous local board composed at least by a President, Secretary and Treasurer.[2] These are responsible for organizing local activities for the students of their Universities, but can also organize international activities for IACES members from other LCs. They are finantially autonomous.

Contact Person
Contact Persons (CPs) are people representing IACES in a University that don't meet the requirements to be LCs.

Coordination Center
Coordination Center (CC) is the LC elected to help the GB in the production of the IACES Reader, update of the website and the production of any other material.

General Assembly of Representatives
The GAR done at least once a year (normally during ACCESS), where the General Board and the Coordination Center are elected. It is also during GAR that the host of ACCESS for the following year is voted.

ACCESS
The Academic Congress of Civil Engineering StudentS is an activity that normally last one week. Its during this that the new General Board, Coordination Center and Account Verifying Committee are elected in the GAR.

ACCESS'14 will take place in Porto, Portugal from the 2nd to the 10th of November.