As a central source of information about European study and work opportunities our WISHES Mobility Portal will be a powerful and utmost useful tool for students worldwide. To make sure, however, that students will be able to easily find their way to this useful tool we are currently intensifying our relations with several student organizations - for instance with the Erasmus Student Network (ESN), AEGEE-Europe, AIESEC, EUROAVIA, Erasmus Mundus Student and Alumni Association (EMA), European Medical Student Association (EMSA) and others.

On 15th of September 2010, and thus shortly before the start of the winter term 2010 we organized in WISHES a first European Live Chat for international students. This chat has been an excellent opportunity for future international students to establish contacts - with each other and towards local students - already before their first personal encounter on the new campus. We thank all participants of the chat for their enthusiasm about such an in-official pre-arrival meeting - and wish all of them a good beginning at their new institution!

We warmly welcome the 100. Supporting Institution within the WISHES Project. The Athens University of Economics and Business recently submitted its Letter of Intent joining the WISHES network. We are looking forward to our cooperation and to providing our intelligent networking and promotion tool WISHES and all connected benefits to this institution – worldwide and free of charge.

In the last weeks all WISHES supporting institutions have been challenged to activitly spread out the word about our project and to invite their partner institutions to join WISHES. Thanks to the active involvement of plenty of supporting institutions our network now comprises 30 further higher education institutions! A warm thanks to all of you who made this activity so successful. Our special thanks go to the Lithuanian Academy of Physical Education in Kaunas, Lithuania. As a small acknowledgement of their outstanding committment to promote WISHES in Lithuania and beyond the Lithuanian Academy of Physical Education has also been awarded the first WISHES Award 2010. Congratulations!

In May 2010 we will officially launch our WISHES mobility portal within the NWD 2010. High time to further interest to our joint project - and to win exclusive promotion withinour future portal and beyond. Therefore, all our WISHES supporting institutions are currently invited to participate in the first WISHES Networking Challenge to attract further interest to our joint project - and to win exclusive promotion within our future portal and beyond. Further information about this WISHES Networking Challenge can be found here.

On 2nd of February 2010 WISHES was successfully presented within the Erasmus Mundus Info Day of the Germany Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Bonn, Germany. Following an invitation of the National Structure for Erasmus Mundus in Germany, WISHES was shown as an Erasmus Mundus project and best practice example. To support future project coordinators and to provide them with advice how to successfully propose an Erasmus Mundus project to the European Commission, besides others also a short look behind the scenes of WISHES was granted. The slides of the workshop can be found under www.daad.eu.

From the 11th of December until 13th of December 2009 a WISHES IT / Analysis workshop was successfully held at Haute École de la Province Liège. The workshop pursued the overall aim to cross-check whether the sound survey results as retrieved within the WISHES surveys have so far been correctly understood and respected within the process of specifying the future WISHES mobility portal. Supported by the positive feedback and constructive discussions of this workshop, we will now finalize the functional specification of the future WISHES mobility portal and thus ensure perfect grounds for the following implementation.

From the 16th of September until 19th of September 2009 WISHES will be presented within the EAIE Conference. In Madrid, Spain we are looking forward to use this chance to reinforce our contacts with our WISHES supporting institutions and to further spread the word about our ambitious endeavor. Thus, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us personally in case you would like to use this unique opportunity for a face-to-face meeting to deeper discuss the benefits offered by our worldwide and free of charge networking and recruitment tool WISHES.

From the 29th of June until 3rd of July 2009 various internal WISHES workshops were successfully held at CATT Innovation Management GmbH. These workshops bridged the Analysis and the IT Phase and thus mainly dealt with handing over the sound survey results concerning the needs of the international students, higher education institutions and enterprises. In line with these utmost relevant and revealing survey findings, our IT Cluster will from now on specify and implement the WISHES mobility portal ensuring that WISHES - unlike the other existing mobility platforms - will satisfy its future users' expressed needs.