Last-minute travel has gone mobile

This summer we have seen a notable shift towards the use of mobile devices, when the Brits search for last-minute travel products. For certain types of products, up to 40% of all Google queries are made on either a tablet or other high-end mobile device. We encourage online marketers to align their activities accordingly to ensure full capture of traffic which comes through Search on all devices. Please find more details about our findings at this link.

Posted by Jonas Vang Gregersen, Sr. Industry Analyst

Global Entrepreneurship Summer School 2012

Last call for applications! Global Entrepreneurship Summer School in Munich, Germany, is not just a conventional Summer School. Don’t miss the chance to be part of the most exciting Summer School around the Globe. Apply now and meet leading Entrepreneurial Talents from around the World for more than one week in Germany.  

This year summer school will be held on September 20-28, 2012, the topic of the summer school: People on our Planet – Challenges of the Future.

Population Dynamics constitutes one of the most multifaceted global issues that will impact the shape of our world’s societies. While in most developed nations the population is both aging and shrinking, the total global population will explode from 7 billion at present to 10 billion in 2050. Never before in history people have migrated at such frequency and number, from rural areas to cities, from the poorer to the richer countries.

It has become common place to work and live in multiple countries and many people see themselves as “citizens of the world”. Megacities rise and bring huge opportunities for new business and science clusters but also bear the threat of ecological collapse. These dynamics produce many challenges for the world community but also huge entrepreneurial chances as entirely new demands and markets emerge. Take the challenge!

Who can apply?
You have to be enrolled in any university at any time during 2012 and you have to be between 18 – 27 years old.

Application process
This year we will accept 35 outstanding students from around the world. All applications will go through a very strict, but fair selection process. The deadline for Early Bird applications will be June 30, 2012. The regular deadline will be July 15, 2012 (GMT -12). We will inform everybody at the latest during the ast week of July about their application status.

Accommodation
Participants won’t have to pay for their accommodation. We will provide accommodation from Sep 19 until Sep 30 either in the guesthouse of the LMU or at other places such as apartments of other participants from Munich.

Global Scholarships
International students can apply for one out of our 20 travel scholarships. When accepted, the Global Entrepreneurship Summer School will contribute 50% of your total travel costs (mostly flight tickets) up to 500,- €. Just to remind you, accommodation, travel during your stay and lots of food during the week is also included – for free!

Food & travel in Munich
We will provide you for free some exclusive dinners as well as many snacks and coffee during the whole week. In addition we will cover your travel expenses for the public transport in Munich throughout the whole week.

Tuition
If you are a student from Germany or if you don’t get accepted for a Global Travel Scholarship the Early Bird tuition fee for the Global Entrepreneurship Summer School is 79,- €. For regular applications after June 30 the fee will be 119,- € per selected participant. If you can provide accommodation to an international participant you won’t have to pay a tuition fee.

Please apply here with your CV and motivational letter (max. around 200 words) as PDF attachments.

Hermann Strenger Scholarships

With the launch of the Hermann Strenger program in 2010, the Bayer foundation is for the first time also offering support to young people in the non-academic sector to gain work experience abroad. 

The program is aimed at committed young people in the final stages of their training or those who have successfully completed their training within the last two years and who are looking to go abroad for a maximum of one year to gain initial international experience as part of a project, internship, training course or simply “on-the-job” work. 

The focus is on the following career areas:

• Technical careers
• Science-related careers
• Careers in the health sector
• Business careers

Examples include office/commercial/IT administrators, office communications personnel, systems/industrial/precision mechanics, electronics specialists in industrial and automation engineering, IT technicians, mechatronics engineers, IT specialists, biology and chemistry laboratory technicians, chemical/pharmaceutical technicians, biological/chemical/pharmaceutical/medical assistants, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses and medical support staff.
 
Applications are welcome from individuals from Germany with a suitable project looking to go abroad and from those from outside Germany planning a comparable stay in Germany.
 
Further prerequisites include good to very good training grades, a high level of commitment professionally and socially or culturally and written confirmation from the foreign receiving institution regarding the planned project. 

Support is generally intended to cover the cost of living, travel costs and incurred project costs. Each applicant can request a specific amount of support by submitting a “cost plan”, and the Board of Trustees then comes to a decision based on this request. The scholarship is paid out in installments according to an individually agreed payment plan. 

The current call for applications is taking place during the period from June 1 to July 15, 2012. The independent Foundation Board will hold its next selection meeting on September 7, 2012.
 
Click here for the online application: Hermann Strenger Scholarships

To apply for the scholarship, please complete the online form referenced above and add the following required attachments: confirmation of your planned stay from the institution or business located abroad, passport photo, recent certificates (high school diploma, vocational training), proof of language skills and letter of recommendation (if available). 

If you have any questions, please contact the foundation office on +49 214 30-41111 (Monday through Thursday). 

Taming Scholars “Gone Wild”

Losing a Scholarship Is a Sacrilege
Losing a scholarship is an easy proposition. Why would any serious student do so? Higher education is becoming more and more expensive no matter in which part of the world you may reside. More and more American students are entering the workforce after being graduated with a mountain of debt that they won’t be able to pay off for many years. The phenomenon is becoming a reality in other countries as well. Any person, young or old, desirous of an advanced education, should welcome any financial assistance and should hold meeting the obligations of that assistance as nearly sacred.

Going Wild and Losing Scholarships
“Going wild” to the degree that financial assistance is lost can come in many forms. For instance, students in Mozambique lost their scholarships when they protested against their government’s lack of democratic reform, in spite of the fact that their grades were exemplary. A similar incident occurred in Swaziland when students took part in protests against the government. Malaysian students who are studying overseas are warned to be very careful about their affiliations while abroad. If they are associated with people or organizations that might affect their perceived loyalty to their government, they could lose their funding.

Bringing Down Tyrants with Education
This type of “going wild” is somewhat understandable because of the “good heart” of the students and the repressiveness of their governments. The fact is, funding is still lost. Perhaps if these students had been a little more cautious, they could have fought the repression more ably after earning a degree. In fact, it would be sweet to bring down a repressive regime using an education that the tyrants themselves had paid for.

Racist American Students Lose Scholarships
Other ways along the line of this sort of “going wild” have brought other students down. In an American state university, a number of marching band members lost their scholarships because of their racist taunts of students of Hispanic extraction who were questioned about their citizenship status. Illegal foreigners receiving student aid is a big problem in America at this time. None of the students who were taunted were illegally in school; they were reviled merely because of their Hispanic heritage. Thus, those band member students lost their scholarships because of their racism.

Sometimes “Going Wild” Is Not Wild at All
Often, failing to do the work required to maintain a scholarship doesn’t mean “going wild” at all; it’s just the failure to get out of bed to attend class or doing the work to maintain a grade point average – abject laziness, in other words. In America, some students receive their scholarships shortly before leaving their senior year of high school. Complacent, they develop what is called “senioritis” which is a “disease” of carelessness. Their grade averages fall, they lose their hard–won scholarships, and find themselves scrambling for money the summer before they enter university.

Sometimes “Going Wild” Is Truly Wild
No doubt about it, a human life is made of many epochs, and young adulthood is an especially wonder–filled time of life. Young people can have their heads turned because of the endless possibilities life holds. Sometimes they are swept away by friends who are not  academically inclined. Sometimes worse, they are beguiled by the acquisition and use of drugs or alcohol. The bad thing is, if ever there was a time when self–discipline is required, it is in this young time; yet the age or maturity that usually accompanies self–discipline is not there. Youngsters must look beyond these distractions and muster all in their character to avoid losing their scholarships and their chance at a higher education.

Consider Going Wild Before Botching Scholarships
Probably the most thing young people should do is examine their own lives, their own estimation of their abilities – not just academically – and to understand as completely as possible what might be right for themselves. It could very well be that some time off from the academic world before assuming the responsibility of a college or university education would be a good idea. They should leave their good grades intact, drop out and see the world, and then go back and get those scholarships and use them when they are more able because of increased maturity, or a clearer eye as to their goals in life. Once scholarships or trusts are abused, it is very difficult to go back and recover from that abuse.

Elements to Tame Scholars Gone Wild Are in Place
Once young people have built the trust of those willing to grant money to them through their grades, their athletic prowess, or other extraordinary achievement, the elements are in place to prevent them from squandering the opportunity:

• Free Money
• Self-Satisfaction
• Earning Power of a Degree
• Prestige of Being a Scholarship Winner
• Availability of Even More Opportunity
• Admiration of Peers, Educators, and Family

If having these wonderful elements in a student’s life is not enough to keep them from “going wild,” not much more can be done to save wild students beyond putting them in a cell full of books with escorts to and from class. Even severe strategies such as that would most probably fail. It is simply up to the character and the pragmatic outlook of the student to resist the temptation to “go wild.” Success is ultimately an individual accomplishment.

About the Author: Patrick Del Rosario is part of the team behind Open Colleges. It is one of Australia’s pioneer and leading providers of Accounting courses. When not working, Patrick enjoys blogging, travelling, and photography. Patrick together with his father runs a Photo Studio in the Philippines. 

Paid Translations Traineeships in EU Parlament

Parliament offers several options for traineeships within its Secretariat, to provide opportunities for vocational training and for learning more about what the European Parliament is and does.

Paid traineeships are awarded solely to graduates of universities or equivalent institutions. Their purpose is to enable trainees to supplement the knowledge which they acquired during their studies and to familiarise themselves with the activities of the European Union and, in particular, the European Parliament.

Applicants for a paid translation traineeship must:

-be nationals of a Member State of the European Union or of a candidate country (Croatia, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro or Turkey);
-be aged 18 or over on the traineeship starting date;
-not have been awarded any other paid traineeship, or have been in paid employment for more than four consecutive weeks, with a European institution or a Member or political group of the European Parliament;
-have obtained, before the deadline for the submission of applications, a university degree after a course of study of at least three years’ duration
-have perfect knowledge of one of the official languages of the European Union or of the official language of an applicant country and thorough knowledge of two other official languages of the European Union.

Paid translation traineeships are awarded for a period of three months. On an exceptional basis, they may be extended for a maximum period of three months.

Application period

15 June – 15 August (midnight) to submit your application.
Trainership period starting from 1st of January 2013
We advise you not to wait until the last day to apply, to prevent the system from becoming overloaded because there are a large number of applications. 

Remuneration

Translation traineeships are assigned to Luxembourg.

For guidance, in 2011 the scholarship amounted to EUR 1 213.55 a month. 

If you are preselected

Please note the conditions for admission. If you are preselected, the following will be requested as supporting documents:
-the application form, duly completed and signed,
-a copy of your passport or identity card,
-copies of your diplomas and certificates, and
-a copy of your university marks (results), if you have them.

It is not necessary to send these supporting documents at this stage. The documents will only be requested if you pass the preselection stage. If you are preselected for a traineeship, your application will be deemed valid only if you provide the full set of documents mentioned above.

If you fulfil the conditions for admission, please complete the online application form.

Please note that if you leave your application form inactive for 30 minutes, the data you have entered will be lost. We therefore advise you to read carefully the Internal Rules Governing Translation Traineeships before filling in the application form.

The application cannot be changed online and is completed and submitted in a single operation. A printed copy of the sample form is available to help you prepare your application before you submit it online.

NB: You should keep a copy of the number that will be allocated to you when you validate your online application.

 

For more information scroll down to Paip Translation Traineeships here

Study Abroad Scholarship Tips

Studying abroad has become the norm among college undergraduates. Being immersed in another culture gives you the opportunity to turn your traditional education on its side. Many students miss out on the opportunity to go, because they think it’s too expensive. It’s definitely not a cheap endeavor, but studying abroad is not as out of reach as many think. Understanding the types of scholarships available, knowing where to look, and making yourself stand out can all make studying abroad possible.

Types of Scholarships

Merit-Based: These scholarships are awarded based on abilities such as academic, athletic, and artistic. Sometimes those in charge of the money will take extracurricular activities and community service into account as well.

Student-Specific: Though minority scholarships are the most common of this kind, student-specific scholarships all deal with factors like gender, race, religion, family, and medical history.

Destination-Specific: As the title implies, these scholarships are offered by the country where the student plans to study.  Government supported websites of these countries are an excellent resource for listings and insight on what they may be looking to give away.

Program-Specific: Individual programs or schools offer these to students and they based on both personal and academic performance. The qualifications will vary based on programs and locations.

Subject-Specific: These scholarships have to do with the student’s field(s) of study or majors. Students may be required to enroll in certain courses or perform research/duties while abroad to use the money.

Where to Look

The best place to start your scholarship hunt is college or university through which you are planning to study abroad. Many offer their own scholarships and resources. For outside funding, check out sites of public organizations that donate funding. Good opportunities may also be found via sites and blogs that write about various scholarships and grants.

Tips For Applying 

• Use your college or university and all of the resources they provide for searching and applying for scholarships.
• Read the guidelines of each scholarship carefully to make sure you qualify.
• Submit all of the materials requested on each scholarship application.
• Treat any essay requirement like a school assignment.  Have a trusted professor or mentor proofread and offer suggestions on revisions. 
• Apply for as many scholarships as you can. Every dollar is one less that you’ll have to pay.

About the Author. Dana Viktor is the senior researcher and writer for duedatecalculator.org. Her most recent accomplishments include graduating from Ohio State University with a degree in communications and sociology. Her current focus for the site involves the chinesepregnancy calendar.

Scholarships for Chinese Students in Canada

How Chinese students can offset the cost of studying in Canada

There are more Chinese students studying in Canada than those of any other nation. One reason that attracts Chinese students to Canada is that they can obtain study scholarships that offset course fees and living costs.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a Chinese audience there had been a remarkable increase in the number of Chinese students studying in Canada.

“Following our 2009 agreements, there has been a remarkable increase in the number of Chinese students studying in Canada.

“There is no better place in the world to study than Canada. That's why more than 60,000 Chinese students now attend Canada’s world-class colleges and universities, a 35 per cent increase in four years …and the number is growing.”

Many Canadian universities and colleges offer scholarships for gifted students, including those from China. The kind of award and financial benefits varies. Applications should be made directly to each university or college. 

Here are 5 Canadian scholarships that are suitable for Chinese students:

1) Strategic Training Initiative in Health Research and CIHR Fellowship, from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research

The Strategic Training Initiative in Health Research (STIHR) is a way for Canada to increase its competitiveness internationally in attracting new, bright, creative research talent and to ensure innovation and excellence in the next generation. Individual training programs receive funding towards supporting research trainees through stipends. 

2) Industrial Research and Development Internship Program, from the Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada

The Industrial Research and Development Internship (IRDI) program is a federal program where successful recipient organisation can gain funds to match graduate students and post-doctoral fellows with private sector host organisations for private sector research internships. The interns work on research projects jointly developed by the private sector host organisation and their academic supervisor. 

The goal is to introduce graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to practical business problems and provide them with the opportunity to apply their scientific and technical expertise to address the needs of participating businesses. It is open to all research areas.

3) Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships Program

The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships Program aims to attract and retain top-tier postdoctoral talent, both nationally and internationally, to develop their leadership potential and to position them for success as research leaders of tomorrow, positively contributing to Canada's economic, social and research-based growth.

The fellowships are administered by Canada's three research granting agencies – the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

The Banting fellowships are among a group of programs that provide support to highly qualified research personnel at all stages of their careers:

• Canada Graduate Scholarships provide financial support to outstanding eligible students pursuing master's or doctoral studies in a Canadian university. 
•  Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships support world-class doctoral students who demonstrate a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies as well as leadership skills.
• Canada Research Chairs provide support to new and established investigators for five- and seven-year terms.
• Canada Excellence Research Chairs, a highly prestigious program, is intended to attract world-class researchers to Canadian universities to work in priority research areas and conduct world-leading research.

.

4) Visiting Fellowships in Canadian Government Laboratories Program

The Visiting Fellowships in Canadian Government Laboratories (VF) Program provides promising emerging scientists and engineers with the opportunity to work with research groups or leaders in Canadian government laboratories and research institutions. Fellowships are awarded for one year with the possibility of renewal for a second and third year, at the discretion of the government department concerned.

The number of awards varies according to the budgets of participating departments and agencies. There are no deadlines for application to this program. Applications are processed and reviewed as they are received.

5) Trudeau Fellowships, from the Trudeau Foundation

Every year, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation selects up to five fellows who have set themselves apart through their research achievements, creativity and social commitment. After a rigorous selection process, the fellows are chosen by an independent jury of eminent researchers and intellectuals.

The Foundation does not accept direct applications for these prizes, but establishes a list of candidates based on suggestions put forward by an extensive nomination network in Canada and abroad. The Trudeau Fellowships are of a total value of $225,000. Trudeau fellows are appointed for a mandate of three years.

The Foundation considers candidates from all disciplines in the social sciences and humanities and all domains of creative arts. It focuses its efforts in four fields: human rights and dignity, responsible citizenship, Canada in the world, and people and their natural environment.

 Additional Canadian scholarships available to Chinese students include:

• Canada-China Scholars’ Exchange Program, from Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
• Canada-China Norman Bethune Health Research Scholarships Program from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research
•  The Sauvé Scholars Program, from the Jeanne Sauvé Youth Foundation
•  Trudeau Scholarships, from the Trudeau Foundation
• Industrial Postgraduate Scholarships Program from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
•  Research Associate Program, from the National Research Council Canada
•  Research Development Initiatives from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
•  Professional Development Awards and The Pearson Fellowship, from the International Development Research Centre

In Canada, the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada oversees the government’s involvement in major International Scholarship Programs and supports international scholars in the country.

ENDS

About the Author: Adrian Bishop is a national award-winning journalist who writes for the world’s leading visa company, GlobalVisas.com. Its free Visa Wizard helps clients assess their chances of gaining study visas.