OUR PROJECT HAS BEEN PRESENTED IN THE VALORIZATION CONFERENCE

CREATIVITY - THE PATH TO THE NOBEL PRIZE
The 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to Orhan Pamuk from Turkey. In his opening address at the awards ceremony, Dr Marcus Storch, Chairman of the Board of the Nobel Foundation pondered on the rather difficult question:

"What are the preconditions for creativity and what are the driving forces behind it?"
This culture of creativity that steers one to the path leading to the Nobel Prize, how is it nurtured ? He refers to Professor Svante Lindqvist, the Director of the Nobel Museum, for an explanation to this query. According to Professor Lindqvist, the following aspects of creativity are worth noting:

Having the courage to challenge things...
Being diligent…
Possessing the ability to combine and synthesize…
Ability to see things in a new way…
Being mobile…
Being lucky…
Working hard and having good teachers

***

Of course these are not enough; the surrounding ennvironment is also important.
And for this Professor Lindqvist describes the ideal environment:
A concentration of many talented individuals in the same place
A broad diversity of skills
Ease of communication
Development of networks
Creation of informal meeting places
Mobility between environments
and obviously freedom, competition
and availability of resources.

***

The Nobel prize may seem to be an unattainable goal, too far beyond our reach... but it is certainly an excellent example of the horizons open to those who pursue creativity.

THIRD PARTNERS' MEETING TAKES PLACE IN PIRAEUS GREECE
Third partners' meeting of Defeminization of Poverty Project has been held in Piraeus-Greece between 6th - 9th September 2006. The host of the meeting was IDEC SA, the project partner from Greece. During the meeting all aspects the project including project progress has been discussed. It has been confirmed that the project is on schedule and will be completed on 30th September 2006 as previously planned. Next meeting is scheduled for early March 2007 and will be held in Romania.

KMI WAS SELECTED AS GROUP LEADER FOR THE LEONARDO DA VINCI
European Union Vocational Training Program, ‘De-feminization of Poverty: The Balkans/Asia Minor e-entrepreneurship Project’. The first coordination meeting for this project, which has a budget of 270,000 Euro took place in Istanbul on October 6 and 7, 2005 in Istanbul with the participation of Turkish, Greek, Romanian and Norwegian project partners. Project implementation, coordination, legal and remuneration issues were the main discussion topics. The project end date is September 2007.

KMI GROUP LEADER for EU LEONARDO PROJECT
5 projects have been selected among 100 applications from Turkey for the EU Leonardo da Vinci international education program. The "e-entrepreneurship Project for the Balkans and Asia Minor" is one of these. The target population is women entrepreneurs from Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia, the Athens Metroploitan Area in Greece and Timosuara in Romania. KMI will create a web based training program consisting of 20 courses which will be supported by classroom studies. Later on this training program is planned to be distributed to other regions in Turkey, Greece and Romania, and further on to Poland, Lithuania, Letonia and Estonia. The project will receive 277,566 Euro funding from the EU. KMI will be acting in the capacity of project leader. Other project partners are GAYA, Turkey, Timsoft and LG Consulting, Romania, Idec, Greece and Subito Research and Futures from Norway. The project will begin on October 1, 2005 and will run for a duration of 24 months.

THE kICK-OFF OF "DEFEMINIZATION of POVERTY" PROJECT WAS MADE WITH A PRESS CONFERENCE HELD AT AMBASSADORE HOTEL IN ANKARA ON 3rd FEBRUARY 2006.
The Project leader is Kavrakoğlu Consulting (KMI) and it is founded by the Leonardo da Vinci Program of the EU with a grant of 270,000€'s. The Project consists of development of 20 on-line courses on entrepreneurship supported by on-line quizzes, open ended questions, virtual classroom applications and in-class training. The pilot application of the Project in Turkey will be made in Malatya, Mardin, Van and Kars. The participants will need a PC with a microphone and loud speaker and an internet connection.

THE PROJECT WILL BE IMPLEMENTED IN TIMASHORA, ROMANIA AND GREATER ATHENS IN GREECE AS WELL . The Project's participants will consist of mostly women, but male applicants will be accepted up to 30% of the total as well. Other partners beside KMI, an expert in distance learning in Turkey, are GAYA from Turkey, IDEC from Greece, Tiimsoft and L&G Consulting from Romania and Subito! Research & Futures from Norway.

THE SECOND PARTNERS’ MEETING OF THE DEFEMINIZATION of POVERTY PROJECT TAKES PLACE in TIMASHORA-ROMANIA
The second partners’ meeting of the Defeminization of Poverty Project took place in Timişoara-Romania on 4-5 May 2006 as scheduled. The meeting was hosted by the project partner  Timsoft-Romania. 
During the meeting, among other subjects, the progress of the project, approaching pilot implementation activity and valorization process were discussed. It is the general opinion of the partners that the project is on-track and progressing well.
Next partners’ meeting will be held on 6-9 September 2006 in Pireus and hosted by the project partner IDEC S.A.