General

Bekader is the alumni organization for graduates of current business and management studies and predecessors at University of Twente. The primary purpose of the association (vereniging) is to establish, develop and maintain the Twente community of business alumni. Bekader collaborates closely with Study Association Stress and Department of High-Tech Business and Entrepreneurship (HBE), formerly Faculteit Bedrijfskunde. The main objectives resulting from this purpose are:

  • maintaining and strengthening relationships amongst alumni
  • maintaining and strengthening relationships between alumni, faculty and current students.

The association was established on the 22nd of April 1983 and is registered at the chamber of commerce of Enschede and is formally residing at the University. The fiscal year coincides with the academic year and runs from September 1 until August 31 (broken fiscal year). The constitution of the association was last updated in November 2020.

Bekader is an active organization and offers alumni opportunities to expand and deepen management and business knowledge and experience. Moreover, the organization offers social events to relive and reminisce the fond memories of your university years with old friends. Finally, Bekader offers various opportunities to expand, strengthen and deepen your business and industry networks.

History

In life change is the only constant. Names (and so much more) of the university, school/faculty and studies have changed over time and yet Bekader serves the community of the current management studies and their predecessors. If you want to learn more about the current terms, names and why and how they changed, please see our Bekader History Page.

Bekader's Activities - networks

Bekader organizes networking events with specific managerial, business or entrepreneurial themes, company site visits and social events. The activities are mostly organized in the centre of Nederland and easily accessible by public transportation. We have had good results with online events, so we offer online events (webinars) as well as live events.

One of our main events, is the master thesis contest for which graduates are invited to participate. We invite the crème of the crop with top grades and a jury of alumni selects the top 3 contenders per study (IBA and IEM).

Please see the Event Calendar page, where you can sign up if you want to join.

Newsletters & communication

Effective communication with the members and entire constituency is crucially important to be successful. Bekader uses various communication channels like: interactive website, email, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Bekader has established several LinkedIn-groups which allows us to communicate with a much larger part of our constituency than just current members, see our Bekader Community page for LinkedIn groups.

It's our ambition to make the Bekader Online Newsletter our platform communication workhorse. The content is to be interesting, relevant and current and appeal to our entire target group. Of course the newsletter is used to communicate about upcoming Bekader and Stress events but there's more. We want to communicate news and information from our members and their companies, research conducted at the university, excellent thesis research and education programs. We also want to make sure the newsletter serves as a networking platform. The newsletter is to be published at least 4 times per year.

See current and past newsletters on our Newsletters page.

Membership

Bekader’s constituency is much larger than just its current membership and it includes:

  • all alumni of management studies at UT, (IBA and IEM) and their predecessors
  • all Department HBE research and education staff members
  • all current members of Study Association Stress.

All of the above are entitled to join Bekader as members and as such are entitled to vote in the general membership assembly and fill board positions. Which is all prescribed in our constitution. Membership is free of charge for new graduates until the moment the membership fee for the next year year is due. After which for one year the membership fee is €10/year and subsequently the membership fee is €25/year. The board is entitled to change the membership fee, annually at the end of the fiscal year. Membership fees are collected at the beginning of the fiscal year through automatic direct debit only. Naturally, this direct debit requires explicit permission.

Bekader Community

Bekader is run by volunteers. We encourage all alumni to get involved in Bekader and actively contribute to making our community relevant, valuable and important. We urge you to make your volunteer work benefit yourself, keep it fun and do it as long as you like. That way, your contributions come from a place of abundance, ambition and energy. Please check out our Bekader Community page to see what you can do and how to sign up.