| IBI |
What was IBI? In the spring of 2004, two graduating seniors from Annandale, VA had completed all of their IB tests, projects, and were pretty much completely done with their work for their High School time. Instead of slacking off and skipping class, they decided instead to put their efforts into attempting to create an organization that could independently foster the same sense of community present in IB programs after high school. These two seniors, eventually accompanied by several of their classmates worked tireslessly at this goal for over a week. The result of this was the IBI , an organization dedicated to independently support the IB Program and the alumni of the program. While initial goals were exceedingly high, such as creating IB fraternities and sororities, the organization had moderate initial success, with over a score of members. These first successes were greatly diminished as the summer came and went and IB seniors entered colleges. The IBI quickly faded into obscurity, a fun time and a good memory of the founding members preserved only in the presence of a poorly designed geocities website. Not a word had been spoken about the organization for over two years when one of the founding members received correspondence from his high school's IB Director. Apparently, the IBO felt the IBI innapropriately used some of the the IBO's intellectual property, namely in the symbol the IBI had created in MSPaint. More amused that anyone realized the existence of the organization than anything else, the member gladly took down the offensive material (after much deliberation over the password) and assumed, like before, the IBI would fall into comfortable obscurity. Unfortunately this was not the case. Again, despite his previous actions, a member was contacted requesting the shutdown of the site. This baffled the member as he had already diligently removed any copyrighted material and the site contained nothing at all controversial or offensive. Apparently, IBO did not want to be considered as a sponsor of the organization (because clearly the IBO hosts on geocities and uses the webdesign of high schoolers) . Now, everything of the former IBI is gone, and nothing can be said against this page. However, the IBO made a misstep in their crusade against alumni of their program. IBI members were a small and young, but nonetheless valuable, ally. Members spoke up both in casual conversations and on the stage to potential IB Program participants to laud the merits of IB. The IBO has lost their support from IBI members as they realize the true character of the IBO. It is not, as they felt, the ideal, concerning the pursuit of knowledge, understanding, and tolerance, but rather that of a bureaucratic organization which would rather spend its resources fighting the silly and completely benign brainchild of two alumni and their free time than defending the noble principles of those two silly alumni . |
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| News (8 Feb 2007): IBI no longer exists. |