The program and Israeli guests of the first OBRAD (Education and Work) conference, which will be held on June 2 and 3 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, were presented at the VERN' Polytechnic.
Today, the program and Israeli guests of the first OBRAD (Education and Work) conference were presented at VERN' Polytechnic, which will be held on June 2 and 3 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb , and is jointly organized by VERN' Polytechnic, the University of Zagreb and the Croatian Employers' Association (HUP), along with the partner country Israel.
The conference and program format were presented by H.E. Zina Kalay Kleitman , Ambassador of the State of Israel to the Republic of Croatia, Branko Štefanović , President of the Board of Directors of VERN' Polytechnic, and Iva Biondić , Director of Development of the VERN' Group and Program Director of the OBRAD Conference.
"The conference will be attended by numerous experts from the education, IT and startup sectors, as well as other areas in which Israel is a leading country in the world, including a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. Cooperation between the educational and economic sectors in Israel is conditioned by the culture of creation, but also by the security circumstances in our country, which encourages the population to stay in the country and develop society. Since the founding of the state in 1948, our economy has multiplied and has literally increased by 100 times to this day, and development continues. I would like to mention that Israel is two and a half times smaller than Croatia, but our population is twice as large, 8.5 million inhabitants. From our experiences, you will see how cooperation between education and the economy can be encouraged in a different way," emphasized Ambassador Kalay Kleitman.
The first conference will also mark the beginning of a broader socially significant project called OBRAD, whose conceptual guidelines were explained by Branko Štefanović .
"Our desire is to create a continuous communication platform where the labor market and education will meet, where their mutual needs will be established. On this platform, and especially at the first conference, we plan to address three key topics: to what extent should the labor market be the focus of higher education institutions, why should the economy invest in higher education, and how to align education with the needs of the labor market."
Accordingly, the conference will feature several lectures, presentations of good practices, panels, round tables and workshops, all on the topic of possible aspects of cooperation between the education system and the economy.
"The Israeli guests who will appear at the conference practically embody the link between education and the labor market. They are Dafna Schwartz , head of the MBA program of entrepreneurship and innovation at Beg Gurion University, Eival Gilady , chairman of the board of Western Galilee College, president of the Northern Goals Association and the Israeli-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce and the former head of the strategic planning division of the Israeli Defense Forces and coordination and strategy of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Moran Nir , executive director of Zell Entrepreneurship program at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, the most successful startup program in Israel, Professor Meital Reches from the Institute of Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Prof. Dr. Ada Yonath from the Weizmann Institute, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009 and the winner of the L'Oreal UNESCO Prize for Women in Science in 2008 , emphasized Ivan Biondić , the director of the conference.
The fact that for the first time one public and one private higher education institution is collaborating on this socially significant project clearly indicates the recognition of the essential problem and challenge in the relationship between education-economy-social development by the key stakeholders of this development.
