The WEO Education Committee under the leadership of Professor Ibrahim Mostafa, Egypt, has developed the Emerging Stars Program to provide a group of promising young doctors the skills to become leaders in the field of digestive endoscopy and eventually form a network of “next generation”expert endoscopists. The program included essential aspects of a leader in endoscopy: how to teach endoscopy, how to manage teams, how to create well- functioning endoscopy units, and above all, how to explore one's potential as a leader. Once the curriculum was developed, there was a call for applications. From the onset, the format defined was that each “class” would have around 20 stars under the age of 45 years from different regions: Europe, USA, Latin America, Asia and Africa – to ensure cultural diversity and good interaction between participants. A scoring system was developed and utilized to make the selection process transparent and objective. Academic achievements, age and geographical distribution were considered.
Professor Ibrahim Mostafa, the education chair of the WEO and a world leader in endoscopy, was reflecting on his career path. He realized that to get to where he is today required a lengthy journey filled with personal exploration, trial and error, and observation and analysis. He began to wonder how he could help the younger generation of aspiring leaders learn these skills in an easier and faster way. He then started working on how to execute this idea and bring it to action. And, thus, the “Emerging Stars program” was born. After about one and a half years of negotiations, Professor Mostafa secured funding for the course from Pentax and Boston Scientific. A task force was then formed from members of the WEO education committee and met in Istanbul and Vienna in 2014 for discussions and planning. Announcement of applications was made through Centers of Excellence, regional member societies, the WEO website and e-mail news letters in March 2015.