IU CIBER's Business is Global

10/14/2025

What an incredible run! 🎉

For 13 wonderful years, the Business Is Global (BIG) program empowered high school students to become thoughtful citizens of the world through language, culture, and business.
Between 2013 and 2025, 506 students from 32 states, 1 U.S. territory, and 5 countries joined us to explore career paths and develop crucial skills in:

• Cultural proficiency and awareness
• Public speaking and networking
• Critical language learning

We are profoundly grateful for the long-standing collaboration with the IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, which allowed us to introduce students to a diverse range of less commonly taught foreign languages and their associated cultures – Akan, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Estonian, Greek, Hungarian, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Norwegian, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Zulu.

While we celebrate the BIG program's incredible legacy, we must share that Business Is Global will not be offered in the summer of 2026.

We encourage high school students interested in foreign language to check out the opportunities offered by the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y).

Thank you to every student, parent, and educator who made BIG a truly global and impactful experience. Once a BIG alum, always a BIG alum! 💙🌎

06/02/2025

This is a fun article:

A country’s currency isn’t just a means of payment—it’s also part of its history. Take a look at the currencies of these 20 countries and discover the piece of the past they represent.

04/30/2025

Thank you for your interest in BIG. BIG 2025 application decisions were emailed last week to the email address on the application. Please check your spam folder if you did not receive an email.

04/09/2025

Tick tock. Time is running out to apply for this summer's BIG. The application closes on Monday, April 14th. Your application is not considered complete until we receive the completed application and teacher recommendation form.

Business Is Global is a summer language program for high school students hosted by the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

04/02/2025

After watching this video, I am so excited to travel to Estonia! It is absolutely gorgeous! Let me know which is your top destination to visit:

🌍 Top 15 Most Beautiful Places in Estonia 🇪🇪Discover the mesmerizing beauty of Estonia as we journey through its enchanting forests, medieval towns, seren...

03/26/2025

Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Our language and culture series offers a taste of numerous less commonly taught languages including some that are a part of BIG this summer. Use the link to jump into Arabic: https://youtu.be/CRv0yV_Shs4?si=U3V5pu9zUyGwZz97

03/17/2025

Are you a K-Pop fan? Who is your favorite group?

02/18/2025

Today we go to Brazil for Carnival! It lasts this year from February 28th through March 8th, 2025! It is always held 40 days before Easter and is the biggest Carnival in the world! Costumes play a significant role, and it is the most popular celebration in Brazil. In Rio alone, there are more than 2 million people in the streets during the festivities. There are competitions among schools with parades and floats, and millions of dollars are spent during this time. Tourists flock to Brazil to see the spectacle!

02/10/2025

Just a reminder that the application for Business is Global is open. It is a two-week program for sophomores, juniors, and seniors interested in experiencing the intersection of business, language and culture. Apply online at: go.iu.edu/2RDA. The program fee is $2000 which covers food, lodging, and class materials for the two-week program. Need-based, full cost scholarships are available from CIBER. This summer, the languages covered will be Korean, Estonian, Arabic, and Brazilian Portuguese.

Business Is Global is brought to you by the Indiana University Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER), in partnership with the Kelley School of Business, East Asian Studies Center, Russian and Eastern European Institute, Arabic Flagship Center, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center.

Business Is Global is a summer language program for high school students hosted by the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

02/06/2025

Have you heard of Mauritania? It is a northwestern country in Africa and comprises a large part of the Sahara Desert. It has a population of over 4 million people speaking Arabic, Pular, Soninke, Wolof and French which are all national languages. The country has iron ore, gypsum, copper, phosphate, diamonds, gold, oil and fish for trade. The country is an emerging democracy after gaining independence from France in 1960.

The landscape can be harsh and beautiful from the desert to the Atlantic Ocean.

01/21/2025

I looked up to understand how many people speak the Estonian language, and it was more than I thought. Estonian is spoken natively by about 1.1 million people: 922,000 people in Estonia and 160,000 elsewhere. When the Republic of Estonia was established in 1918, Estonian became the official language of the newly independent country. Immediately after World War II, in 1945, over 97% of the then population of Estonia self-identified as native ethnic Estonians and spoke the language. Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family. Other Finnic languages include Finnish and some minority languages spoken around the Baltic Sea and in northwestern Russia. Estonian is typically subclassified as a Southern Finnic language, and it is the second-most-spoken language among all the Finnic languages. Alongside Finnish, Hungarian and Maltese, Estonian is one of the four official languages of the European Union that are not Indo-European languages.

01/14/2025

Let's talk about Brazil today, where Portuguese is spoken. News coming out of Brazil is the government has signed into law a bill that bans cellphones in school. Do you think this would ever pass here in our country? Other countries have done the same including the Netherlands, Italy and France up to certain ages. It is interesting to learn about the differences between our culture and other cultures, what we tolerate and what other cultures tolerate. It makes life more interesting.