Founded in 1993 on the initiative of Dr. Rainer Zäck, AiB emerged as a nonprofit organization with its roots in the design, planning, and implementation of specialized education abroad programs for U.S. institutions of higher education. AiB remains committed to the original impulse and ideal of intercultural exchange of Dr. Zäck, who passionately built, expanded and pushed AiB forward for over two decades.

Today, AiB is a values-based nonprofit educational organization that develops and implements higher education, continuing education, and scholarly and artistic projects both independently and in cooperation with national and international partners. In its educational work, AiB is committed to a humanistic and holistic educational ideal. It counts among its guiding values the endeavor to deal responsibly with nature and natural resources, the advocacy of an open society, and in particular the respect for freedom of thought, science and art. Today, AiB sees itself as an international academic forum that brings people and cultures together and enables them to engage in an open exchange with a view to social perspectives for the future.