ISF Waterloo receives a special award from Project Management Institute of Belgium

Head of school, Belinda Yates says, “In May 2014 we decided to equip our students for 21st century learning and introduce the newest educational technology into the classroom. We are now the first Google for Education school in Belgium.

“This was a massive change for us. Not only did we plan the €75,000 procurement of all the necessary equipment, and train the teachers/students/parents, but we did all this within less than twelve months!

“We already had the pleasure of working with Jacques Neyns, the Educational Liaison Officer of PMI, when introducing Project Management as a subject in our curriculum, and Mr Neyns kindly agreed to oversee the planning and implementation of Project Ignition.”

Throughout this past school year, Yates and her team have worked through the different phases of Project Ignition, and by the end of April succeeded in delivering all the planned milestones, on schedule and within budget. This included the requirement for every teacher to become Google Certified by studying over 40 hours of online tutorials, attending several workshops, and passing the necessary Google for Education exams.

“It was a massive learning curve for us,” Yates says. “We are all teachers – not project managers. And as with any major transformation project, there were some setbacks and scenarios that we did not foresee and we had to find solutions and alternatives very quickly.”

On 20 May, ISF Waterloo’s ‘Google Gurus’ presented Project Ignition as a case study in project management, to the quarterly PMI Belgian Chapter meeting. And it was clearly a success, which PMI Belgium acclaimed by honouring the school with this unexpected and prestigious award.

Kris Troukens, Regional Mentor for the PMI in Europe, says, “PMI has awarded ISF Waterloo International School with the ‘2015 Outstanding PM skills’ award, and PMI is now looking at how to replicate this success story in other schools and countries.”

Dirk Huyers, President of PMI-Belgium adds, “Another PMI success story, and at one of the first schools in Belgium to truly embrace the digital age.”

What is Project Ignition? Why has PMI Belgium been involved?

• The School Vision & Mission Statement aims ‘to ignite a passion for lifelong learning’; and
• ISF Waterloo has been teaching project management for three years helped by PMI-Belgium.

Contributed by ISF Waterloo International School