WEASA2023 P2P Meetings initiatives are known! 

After successful implementation of the pilot project last year, we are committed to continue alumni-centered and alumni led initiative, which is aimed at satisfying the requests and recommendations of our alumni who want to get to know one another better. WEASA Peer-to-Peer Meetings Initiative promotes the interaction between alumni members by providing them support for visiting their peers, researching a field of interest, holding interviews, or other professional initiatives. This year we have selected three great initiatives:

Improving the cyber resilience of the State Election Commission of North Macedonia 

The idea of this initiative was proposed by Giorgi Iashvili (WEASA alumnus of 2018, Georgia), who will be hosted by Marija Gjorgieva (WEASA alumnae of 2020, North Macedonia) for a professional exchange. On behalf of the Cyber Trust, a consultancy company based in Tbilisi and operating internationally, Giorgi is eager to leverage his knowledge and experience to support and amplify the experience of his peer Marija, who is the Associate Director of Partnerships at Global Cyber Alliance. With joint efforts WEASA alumni will study how to support the electoral process in North Macedonia through identifying the needs for cyber resilience of the State Election Commission of North Macedonia.  

Field visit to Albania as an EU candidate country for policy recommendations about Georgia  

This idea was promoted by Nino Samkharadze (2020, Georgia) who wishes to study the process of integration of Albania at an academic level. She will be hosted by Dr Gentjan Skara (2021, Albania), Professor of EU Law in Epoka University․ Nino is an Analyst at Georgian Institute of Politics (GIP) and a professor at International Black Sea University, and she intends to make a case study of Albania as a candidate state and make correlations with Georgia in order to make recommendations and/or scenarios related to Georgia’s EU integration perspective.

Data journalism from Georgia to Moldova 

Digital tools have paramount importance in todays’ relations between different stakeholders. Vlada Ciobanu (2022, Moldova) who works at Primaria Mea NGO, is responsible for creating effective tools for the dialogue between citizens and authorities. She proposed a visit to Georgia and take part in DataFest Tbilisi. She will be hosted by Nino Macharashvili (2018, Georgia), the founder of DataFest Tbilisi. DataFest Tbilisi is the first annual international data event in South Caucasus supporting cross-sectoral cooperation in digital affairs. Vlada intends obtain knowledge and practical skills on data journalism and transform it to her daily activities for the betterment of the relations between the civil society and state.

We congratulate Giorgi, Nino, and Vlad for their great initiatives and wish them good luck.

Specifically we would like pass our thankfulness to our generous hosts Marija, Gentjan and Nino who will dedicate time for their peers as a good practice to strengthen even more the WEASA networking.

Wait for the updates and stories of our alumni.