The U8 means different things to different people. Here is a collection of people’s thoughts on what the U8 means to them. They are intended to tell the story of the U8 from an individual’s perspective.

To hear what each person thinks, simply click on their photo or name.

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'What does the U8 mean to you?' – Mark Koller

How can you connect people to unlock their collaborative potential? How can you add two and two to equal five? What reassurance is there to combat that lingering self-imposed question:

“What can I, one person, do to make a difference?”

That question which forever eats away at the perception of your endeavours, making you doubt the worth of your efforts.

When Sheena Sumaria and Natasha Hughes, the founders of U8, first told me of the idea of a global partnership of student international development groups, learning from each other, engaging with the political opinion formers to learn but also be heard, and, most importantly, proactively including the opinions of students in developing countries. I thought U8 could well be an answer.

My thinking went along the lines of:

· I’d heard that there were lots of NGOs, governments, and UN agencies doing good work in the field of international development, but that one of the problems was that they weren’t communicating effectively with each other or coordinating their efforts

· There appeared to be lots of students from the West, who wanted to go work in developing countries and help people living in poverty, yet more often than not it appeared from what I had seen that these people delivered aid to people, or taught people how to pull themselves out of poverty, and didn’t do much listening to what those people had to say for themselves

· Similarly, the way that policies affecting developing countries were being decided upon, such as via the G8, the World Bank, and World Trade Organisation etc., didn’t seem to include the opinions of the people whom those policies would directly impact

So, could our generation of students teach ourselves to behave in an inclusive and collaborative way? If students, who wanted to change the world for the better, were constantly interacting with each other, learning from each other's experiences, creating common objectives to pursue together, and reinforcing each other's passion in their chosen cause – could we have a greater impact than the sum of our parts?

There were lots of factors working in our favour as students:

1. We were not yet tied down by any political or organisational agenda;

2. At University, we were in a microcosm of society, surrounded by future lawyers, doctors, bankers, scientists, who through our efforts we could influence to think in a different way

3. With the internet, we could connect with each other on a global scale

It was this ideal that drove me in helping to set up the U8 Global Student Partnership for Development. Over the course of the last four years, I have reiterated my spiel about the U8 over and over, trying to appeal to the needs and wants of a wide range of students who ask: what is the benefit of being in the U8 Global Partnership? What do I get out of it? Why should I care?

· “Connected students can learn more deeply and more quickly – pooling their opinions and knowledge to be more effective at bringing about change and have more evidence to support what that change needs to be”

· “Together students can impact more widely – leveraging their diversity and size to open new opportunities for engagement with policy makers and practitioners in discussions of development policy and practice”

· “You’ll learn lots of transferable skills, it looks amazing on your CV, potential employers will love it”…and so on

But the more I think back to what first motivated me three years ago, the more I realise that the justifications I have been using, though true, are completing missing the point. For the end game is not to have more skills, or to learn more about development, or meet Kofi Annan. The point is that we are striving to change the way we think and communicate as human beings:

How we frame the problems of ourselves and others

Who we speak with to develop solutions and how much weight we assign their views

We are a global society, in which the challenges we face are blind to borders, race, class, and gender

Therefore the solutions must also be deliberated, decided upon, and enacted globally

The U8 is not meant to be a club, in which membership entitles you to certain privileges

The U8 is not a training centre, where students can come to learn new skills.

The U8 is a vision of what a globally connected society could look like, a test bed of inter-connectivity.

Anyway, here’s a few practical tips that I’ve picked up from my time with U8:

1. Share your passion indiscriminately - whoever you are talking to has something to share which will change your life and contribute to your goals

2. Make your activism Active Listening – sometimes its best to play back what you're hearing rather than getting your own opinion in as it helps create a common understanding, builds trust, and prompts additional information

3. Understand the situation in depth to know how to change it – before trying to create a solution understand the causes, both perceived and actual, of a situation, find out about all the actors involved, engage with the evidence they are drawing upon to support their opinions, be aware that a positive change in one place may result in new problems elsewhere

4. Transfer skills and experiences within, across, and between - share lessons learnt so that mistakes aren’t needlessly repeated elsewhere and look to all sectors (private, public, and voluntary) as they each have their own distinctive qualities and skills that are useful

Mark Koller, former U8er.