School's Out for Summer

• Author: Sylvie Castonguay
• Position: WIPO Magazine Editorial Staff, Communications and Public Outreach Division

The objective of the WIPO Summer School is to provide an opportunity for senior students and young professionals to acquire deeper knowledge of IP, and to gain an appreciation of IP as a tool for economic, social, cultural and technological development and the role WIPO plays in the global administration of IP. This year's Summer School was held over two weeks, and included lectures, case studies, simulation exercises and group discussions. The lectures were oriented toward the interface between IP and other disciplines, rather than remaining on generalized IP topics. "The course helped me to put all the different aspect of IP together in a framework and see how they interconnect," said András Jókúti of the Hungarian Ministry of Justice and Law Enforcement.

The participants were selected on merit from hundreds of applicants. Of those selected, 33 were students and 22 were young professionals from different backgrounds and diverse fields of study, with a slight predominance of lawyers. But the group also included a teacher, an economist, a life sciences researcher, a biotechnology and genetics engineer and students in economy, geography, physics, computer sciences, engineering, etc. The aim was to encourage discussion and the exchange of views. Dan Shi, an engineer from China with a Masters Degree in IP...