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In hopes of supporting professional relationships between the Basque Country and America, the Cenarrusa Foundation in Boise, Idaho and Bizkaia:talent have created a leadership program that will allow highly-qualified professionals on both sides of the ocean to experience stays in Euskadi and the USA or Canada in 2016. The stays will be between 10 and 21 days.  Deadline to apply is April 30. 

Bilbao, Bizkaia.   Bizkaia:talent and the Cenarrusa Foundation in Boise have worked to encourage the creation of a network of professional contacts among highly-skilled workers from both sides of the ocean, particularly the Basque Country and the US and Canada through the Leadership Program for Building Basque American Partnerships 2016.

This program was initiated during Unai Rementeria’s, Deputy General of the Provincial Government of Bizkaia, stay in Boise during Jaialdi 2015 along with Ivan Jimenez, the managing director of Bizkaia:talent.  

The program seeks to create a platform to learn more about business, scientific, technological, institutional and the cultural reality of Euskadi and the US and Canada.  To do so, it will support some exchanges in these countries.  

Participants will be able to make direct contact on the ground with the most important organizations and institutions.  The goal is to “promote the development of talent and leadership in all of these with a link between the two places throughout their professional careers,” according to sources at Bizkaia:talent.

Program Structure

The first edition of the program includes 12 weeks of preparation, between 10, 15, and 21 days of exchange in another country according to the model of participation and a permanent opportunity of Basque-American commitment and cooperation.

During the preparations, participants will be trained on Basque-American relations and will increase their knowledge about communities that they will visit and identify their leadership development goals. Preparations will include a welcome; obligatory and recommended readings on culture, economics, intuitional reality and science-technology in the hosting country; webinars and surveys; tutorials with coordinators and a final meeting before the exchange takes place.  

During the visiting period abroad, participants will have the opportunity to meet with leaders and opinion makers as well as key decision makers. The majority of the stay is a group activity, where there will be joint stays among the Basque and American participants.  In the same way, there will be some free time for individual activity so that participants can also pursue their personal interests, and meet, at least, with one important representative of an organization that is in their area of work or research.

Program Modes

Leadership Program for Building Basque American Partnerships 2016 is structured in two modes:.

Mode 1: Exchange from the Basque Country to USA/Canada

In this mode there will be a maximum of four individuals

This mode include, among others, 21 day stays in the USA/Canada

Mode 2: Exchange from USA/Canada to the Basque Country

In this mode there will be a maximum of two individuals

This mode includes, among others, a maximum of 15 day stay in Bizkaia/Basque Country (as well as hopefully allowing participants to get to know the principal institutions of the Spanish State and European Union).

To apply visit: https://extranet.bizkaiatalent.org/profesionals/

More information is available by writing to: basqueamericanpartnership@bizkaiatalent.eus

For candidates in the US/Canada, more information is available in the Cenarrusa Foundation website: here.