Prepared by: Tina Lee Odinsky-Zec Presentation prepared for: Networking Coffee and Info Session: 28th of August, 2013

1. Networking Coffee and Info Session
Prepared by Tina Lee Odinsky-Zec
28 August 2013

3. Table of Contents
• History of Project
– Historical Overview
– IFTF and related events
– Launch conferences
– Follow on goals
• Current Status Update
• Next Steps

4. Historical Overview
In 2010, The Invest for the Future program was initiated by
the US Department of State under the leadership of
Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton and Global Ambassador-
at-large for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer.
IFTF was conceptualized to focus on improving the
economic situation for women across Southern and
Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Through a series of events it
brought together women entrepreneurs, educators, policy-
makers, and civil society leaders to foster development and
overcome barriers to fully realize the promise of gender
equality and “smart economics”, as investing in women
profits all of society.

5. (Former) Secretary Clinton video message to IFTF Istanbul in 2011 said,
“Investing in women is one of the best ways to spur economic growth,
accelerate development and to reduce poverty which in turn strengthens
national security...
When we invest in women we invest in the future.”

6. IFTF and related events
Invest for the Future – 3 Regional Conferences
•2011 – January 24/26 Istanbul, Turkey
•2011 – October 26/27 Zagreb, Croatia
•2012 – November 8/10 Warsaw, Poland
Related:
•2011 – July 18/19 Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Women’s Economic Symposium

7. First U. S.
Ambassador-at-
Large for Global
Women’s Issues,
Melanne Verveer
With President of
Kosovo, the
Honorable Atifete
Jahjaga
@IFTF Zagreb,
2011

8. Three Main Launch
Conferences
Invest for the Future
-Women Driving
Economic Force
January 24-26, 2011
Istanbul, Turkey
Local Organizer:
Kagider Women
Entrepreneur’s
Association of Turkey
Participants: 120
Countries: Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Cyprus,
Georgia, Greece, Turkey +
Invest for the Future
October 24-26, 2011
Zagreb, Croatia
Local Organizer:
Zagreb School of
Economics and
Management
Participants: 180
Countries: Albania, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus,
Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro,
Serbia, Slovenia +
Invest for the Future
November 8-10, 2012
Warsaw, Poland
Local Organizer:
Vital Voices – Poland
Chapter
Participants: 100
Countries:
Belarus, Moldova, Poland,
Ukraine +
for social media

9. Current Climate
• An idea in 2010 needs to evolve and adapt to the changing marketplace
• There are numerous initiatives to support female entrepreneurship in the region and
their seems to be a lack of synergy
• Other organizations/programs in the space include Vital Voices, International Visitor
Leadership Program, American Alumni Associations, I4U Mentoring, International
Women Entrepreneur’s Forum, Golden Rules of Leadership and others.
• The 2 follow on conferences need to stick to the original intention of the IFTF program
but adapt content to suit the more sophisticated entrepreneurs and enablers who now
have much more experience but still have needs
• The niche IFTF can fill is in a strong online support network, an umbrella which will
continue recognize and encourage talent and leadership platforms as well as
recognize and celebrate emerging leaders and institutions.

10. Slavica
Nikolovska

11. Regional and National Roles
• IFTF Network Leader: Tina Lee Odinsky-Zec
• Regional Coordinators: Tina (from Zagreb conference
countries) Agnieszka Bilinska (from Warsaw countries)
Nino Zambakhidze (from Istanbul countries)
• Country Coordinators: Each country needs its own
motivated leader to collect and disseminate information
from and to the regional network platforms as identified
(like Nino Zambakhidze for Georgia (dual role); Slavica
Nikolovska for Macedonia; Agnieszka Bilinska for Poland
(dual role) and more to be selected and added on a
rolling basis.

12. Strategy Forward:
IFTF#Talent – Mine, Yours & Ours
Struga, Macedonia
17-19 October 2013
In order to have high impact we need to attract
women who can guarantee post-training
enthusiasm.
We will target a core of female leader’s who
apply in 3 simple questions...
1.What talent do you have to share?
2.What skills do you want to acquire?
3.Which 10 women will you transfer your new
skills and knowledge to? How and where?

13. Hotel Drim – Struga, Macedonia

14. Cascading Impact Plan
• 6-8 women with talent to share from each
country who will get trained in new skills and
transfer talent to 10 locally influential women.
• Day 1 – Travel Day and Networking Evening
• Day 2 – Train the Trainer (60-80 IFTF network
participants) English only
• Day 3 – New Talent Trainees outreach to MMN
– Local Translation (60-80 local participants

15. The Book Collaboration
• Original research and content was envisioned in the
orginal follow on grant for IFTF
• An ebook or hardbound book was always planned
• Working Title has been developed The Dictionary of
Success: Key Words Along the Path at Macedonia
Mentoring Network meetup
• Call for chapter authors launched on 24 June
• With completed book to come out in conjunction with
International Women’s Day 2014 and launch party at
IFTF#Success conference.

16. 42 Chapters to date
featuring Authors from over
25 countries and growing.
Each chapter focuses on
one word other than
success and covers the
term over 4 to 8 pages,
concise, compelling and
personal journeys of
professional women and
entrepreneurs

17. IFTF#Success
Defining It On Our Own Terms
Zagreb, Croatia 7-9 March 2014
The focus on #Success is will feature selected
authors from the book project to share how they
are defining success on their own terms.
This is a timely topic because successes are
achieved throughout the life cylce not just as an
end goal.

18. Coming March 7-9, 2014
Zagreb

19. Common Follow-on Goals
Support of our community.
The Network component of the Invest for
the Future network is organized so that
visitors may easily search, find and
connect with members of our community.
It is possible to view the site and sort
among countries and industries in our
network. We also feature a slide show that
spotlights different members with a brief
story about their enterprise and strategy.
As our network grows so will our directory
of women owned businesses, support
organizations and the interconnectivity of
the representative regions.
Find seed money and grow your investments.
According to the EU, Women entrepreneurs are
far less likely to use loans as a means of
financing their ventures than men. Invest for the
Future will use these pages to make members in
our network and visitors to the site more aware of
the range of financial instruments that area
available for them. The vitality of the region can
only be strengthened if the hidden potential of
female entrepreneurs is realized and financing
can help scale their businesses for strategic
growth.
Training and skills exchange for lifelong
learning and professional development
The IFTF learning resources offer insights from
experts who will each prepare a series of
learning modules in the form of blog posts and
relevant links. The topics to be covered include
business planning, legal issues, marketing and
communication, industry clusters, trends to
watch and much more. We will also be
maintaining a clearinghouse of policy reports,
research and articles that will keep our
members well informed and able to read, watch
and listen in a quick click of a link.

20. Online Portal Development
• We currently operate mirror domains of www.investforthefuture.biz
and www.investforthefuture.net
• Working with UNET to build technical capacity of domains
• Learn: Learn Modules with more visual elements and less text to
include YouTube videos, Online Tasks, Synopsis from Expert,
Learning Objectives/Highlights
• Network: Showcase of Female entrepreneurs and Enablers in
Context as well as searchable database by country, sector, key
words
• Earn: Product and service Spotlight to shop via links not directly at
this time but capacity to generate revenue long term

21. Network
Network

22. Work in Progress
• Securing logistics for Macedonian
conference – Macedonia Mentoring
Network
• Managing participant application and
program development for Follow on
conferences
• Regional Coordinators actively
outreaching to IFTF HCC leads

23. Next Steps
• Identifying and contacting public and
private partners to build sustainable future
for IFTF network
• Continued maintenance of website and
social media content and usability
• Focus on girls and youth content and
programming

25. Discussion
• What are your ideas to join the network?
• How could we create local synergy to
make Croatia a model of collaboration?
• Where do you think there is a gap in the
market for nurturing needs of female
entrepreneurs?