In this article, I interviewed Nour and Daria, IBlieve’s Impact Co-Leads! They take us behind-the-scenes to show us what the Impact team is all about, what the Impact Report is, and how it affects the wider IBlieve community!
Please introduce yourself!
I am Nour and I am an M22 graduate from Egypt! I am currently completing a law degree in Egypt as well. I joined IBlieve in February 2024, around the same time as Daria as an Impact Co-lead.
I am Daria, the other Impact Co-lead. I am an M23 from the UK where I am currently studying Biomedical Sciences. I have been following IBlieve since 2021, and was really glad to be able to join this year!
In your own words, what is the Impact team all about?
Nour: The Impact team’s main job is to document and present IBlieve’s achievements in the past year. We gathered data from all the IBlieve teams to create a report that reflects everything that was accomplished in 2023. When published, this report will allow both members and our audience alike to understand IBlieve’s impact on the community.
What exactly is the Impact Report, and what is its purpose?
Daria: Our main objective for 2024 is to create the annual report for 2023. The report is a document full of text and graphs that do not only show the technical successes of IBlieve, but also communicates who IBlieve’s members are (e.g. where are they from and what they do in IBlieve) which is really important because the organization has a very diverse membership. I’d also like to think the report not only showcases to the readers what IBlieve has been doing, but also showcases to IBlieve members the progress and success they have made.
Nour: The report is catered towards both people who may or may not know about the organization. For those who are familiar with the organization, interviewing team members is a way to commemorate what IBlieve has accomplished in the past year as well as get to know the people behind the organization. Through interviews and forms, we asked people what their favorite projects were, what was the best part of their jobs among others. So, the report does not only have statistics and numbers but also the fun times like bloopers and favorite projects! For people who do not know about the organization, it is a really great entry point if they do want to join the community. Everything they have to know is right there: What the organization is all about and does, who works on it and what exactly do they do, etc.
How do you pick what information goes into the report?
Daria: When we started this report, we had a meeting with the Execs to figure out what the report should contain. Then, between me and Nour, we had discussions on what we wanted the report to be as members of IBlieve; this was when we decided that we had to go beyond the statistics and touch on the people who make everything possible. In the forms and interviews we sent out to team members, we wanted to collect numerical data like “How many more viewers did you receive?” and “How many subscribers do you currently have?”, but we also asked questions like “What is IBlieve to you?” and “Why is IBlieve important?”. This was to show that although IBlieve is very numerical, it is made up of students as well.
Nour: Just to go off that, we also tried to balance this by thinking about the questions that could be asked by readers who don’t really know what IBlieve is. Personally, before I joined IBlieve, I was only aware of what content they produced, but didn’t really know anything about the specific workings of the organization. Of course, we balanced this with our desire to really make this a testimony of the team’s hard work and dedication in building up the organization.
For you, what is your favorite part about being part of the Impact team?
Nour: Personally, my favorite part was making and sending the forms because of the feeling of achievement we shared when we got responses back. Working on this project, in general, is very rewarding because you see an actual physical project. It’s also great because we have a great dynamic, and it’s nice to be able to bounce ideas off each other, and create a joint system that works for the both of us.
Daria: I think my favorite part was asking different people the question of “What is IBlieve?”. To me, it means one thing, but everytime we got a new response, it was a different answer. So, being able to see how different the organization looked in everyone’s eyes, and being able to understand the impact that IBlieve has had on our members has been great.
What are the Impact team’s greatest achievements?
Nour: In the future, the team’s greatest achievement would definitely be publishing the 2023 report. For now, being able to link up the entire organization via our team mission has been great. People may not be aware, but IBlieve is composed of a really big system of people, so being able to see all aspects of this system and portraying it in a meaningful way to our audience is definitely up there.
Daria: I can relate a lot to Nour with the addition of being part of that big system. The Impact team is a newer addition, but we’ve already been able to integrate ourselves in with the other teams. Seeing how we fit in the bigger picture has been great, and we hope to be able to communicate that with our readers soon.
The 2023 IBlieve Annual Report will be released in August 2024.