BH Futures Foundation Academy in Banja Luka

The past weekend was a working weekend for the BH Futures Foundation staff members, volunteers and guests as they all attended the second Bosnia & Herzegovina Futures Foundation Academy held in Banja Luka.

The moderator and coordinator of the event was the fantastic Tatjana Vucic, board member of the Bosnia & Herzegovina Futures Foundation, who carried out the program in her own particular way.

The Academy was organized in cooperation with our partner, the leading IT company in Bosnia and Herzegovina  - LANACO, and was held in the premises of the newly opened LANACO Technology Centre in the heart of Banja Luka.

Bosnia & Herzegovina Futures Foundation differs from others because, apart from financial support, it provides its scholars with education through various activities. One of these activites is certainly the Academy. It is designed to provide our scholars, from STEM field of studies, interactive workshops aimed to develop their personal and professional skills. The first Bosnia & Herzegovina Futures Foundation Academy held in January of 2018 was focused on social media branding and writing CVs and always current topics which the participants successfully mastered, and are applying the sophisticated techniques in practice.

On the first day of the second Bosnia & Herzegovina Futures Foundation Academy, emphasis was put on presentation skills and public speaking, while the second day was reserved for teaching fundraising techniques.

At the beginning of the first day our scholarship recipients presented on the topic "My Passion: What do I want to be an expert in?" where they talked about their career goals in the industries they consider to be their passion. They had the task of presenting to the audience in no more than three minutes, approaching the area they are dealing with and explaining why that particular area is their passion. We first listened to the interesting presentations of the Bosnia & Herzegovina Futures Foundation scholarship recipients, which presented at a high level that is always expected of them. After they finished with their presentations we enjoyed a coffee break during whit enjoying the conversations with other guest students, sharing laughter, euphoria, enthusiasm along with good energy and good ideas that filled each room of LANACO Technology Centre.

Later that day, we listened presentations of our guest experts who gave practical lessons and tips to help the students enhance their presentations even more. Participants were first introduced to Nina Kremenović from LANACO, who talked about the importance of nonverbal communication, body language, voice tone and other fines that we may not pay enough attention during our presentation. After Nina, our BHFF board member ,Vernisa Rejhan, has drawn our attention in an interesting and innovative way to the significance of verbal communication, rhetoric and the words during the presentation, to teach us which elements should our speech contain, and share the story of her journey to the stars and to encourage us to never give up.

In the second part of the day, for the first time, the guests of the Academy had the opportunity to present themselves to the guests of the Academy. They are young, talented and ambitious people from Banja Luka and who have recognized the values that BF Futures Foundation cherishes and who showed their interest in becoming the part of our big family.  Six STEM discipline students have been given the opportunity to show who they are, why they are here and what is their drive through a 3-minute presentation. They were exceptional. By summing up the impressions, we ended our first day of the Academy, while the rest was reserved for networking.

On the second day we were joined by the contest winners, giving them the opportunity to show how innovative and creative they can be when it comes to financing their ideas, to show their competitive spirit and participate in another Challenge together with all the other presenters. This presentation was on the topic: "Fundraising plan for______: The event that will contribute to my professional development". A three minute presentation was supposed show to the participants and the expert judge panel what the event is about, why they chose and what is the meaning of the event and what the total cost would be, with an accent on the money-making strategy.

The three-membered expert committee carefully listened, evaluated, and awarded the best presenters with symbolic cash prizes. Initially it was planned to give out three prizes, but the participants of the challenge were so exceptional that the expert committee had no choice, but award six instead of three prizes.

Although it was a very busy weekend I was very productive. We have seen great, creative ideas, strategies for fundraising, the desire and the passion that will lead the young people on their way to success. We were once again convinced that the youth of Bosnia and Herzegovina is talented, ambitious, determined to explore and fight against the obstacles, while they struggle for unity, strength and a better future.

The aim of the II Academy was not only to showcase the fundraising and presentation skills but to see the creativity and innovativeness of their colleagues, thus combining different kinds of methods and ways to find or build their own personal style that would be stamped as their professional style.

A few of the event photos are below, the remaining photos can be found under the following link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1psvWcgs6b-WFg1h9uAalpiGjyTxikv1l

Proteklog vikenda je za Fondaciju bio radni, jer smo prisustvovali drugoj BHFF Akademiji održanoj u Banjoj Luci.

Moderatorica i koordinatorica cjelokupnog događaja bila ja fantastična Tatjana Vučić, član odbora BHFF koja nas je, na njoj svojstven i zanimljiv način provela kroz program.

Akademija je organizovana u saradnji sa našim partnerom, vodećom IT kompanijom BiH - LANACO i održana je u prostorijama novootvorenog LANACO Tehnološkog centra u srcu Banja Luke.  

Naša fondacija se razlikuje od ostalih po tome što, osim finansijske podrške, svojim stipendistima daje mogućnost edukacije kroz različite aktivnosti. Jedna od njih je svakako i ova Akademija. Zamišljena je sa ciljem da stipendisti, koji su iz STEM oblasti, kroz interaktivne radionice razvijaju svoje lične i profesionalne vještine. Prethodna, prva akademija bila je fokusirana na uređivanje profila na društvenim mrežama, te pisanje CV-ja, uvijek aktuelne teme koje su učesnici uspješno savladali, te savladane tehnike primjenjuju u praksi.

Ovoga puta, prvog dana Akademije akcenat smo stavili na prezentacijske vještine i javno govorništvo, dok je drugi dan bio rezervisan za fundraising.

U prvom dijelu dana 1, stipendisti su izlagali prezentacije koje su radili na temu “My Passion: What do I want to be an expert in?” gdje su govorili o svojim karijernim ciljevima u oblastima industrije koje oni smatraju svojom strašću. Imali su zadatak da nam u izlaganju ne dužem od tri minute, približe oblast kojom se bave i objasne zašto ih baš ta oblast interesuje. Prvo smo poslušali interesantna izlaganja BHFF stipendista koji su svoje zadatke iznijeli na visokom nivou, što je i bilo za očekivati. Nakon toga uslijedila je pauza tokom koje su smijeh, euforija, entuzijazam zajedno sa dobrom energijom i dobrim idejama ispunili svaku prostoriju LANACO TC.

Kasnije toga dana, poslušali smo stručnjake koji su dali nekoliko praktičnih lekcija i savjeta kako da studenti budu još bolji u svojim sljedećim prezentacijama. Učesnicima se prvo predstavila Nina Kremenović iz LANACO-a, koja je govorila o značaju neverbalne komunikacije, govora tijela, potom tonaliteta glasa i drugim finesama kojima možda ne posvetimo dovoljno pažnje tokom prezentovanja. Svoje izlaganje završila je animiranjem studenata kroz igricu uz pomoć koje su ponovili ključne stvari. Nakon Nine, naša Vernisa Rejhan je na interesantan i inovativan način skrenula pažnju na značaj verbalne komunikacije, odnosno retorike i samih riječi tokom prezentacije, naučila nas koje elemente bi trebao da sadrži naš govor, te podijelila sa nama priču o njenom putu do zvijezda i ohrabrila nas da ne odustajemo.

U drugom dijelu dana, po prvi put, imali su priliku da nam se predstave i gosti Akademije. Riječ je o mladim, talentovanim i ambicioznim ljudima iz Banja Luke i okoline koji su prepoznali vrijednosti kojima se ova fondacija vodi i poželjeli biti dio nje. Radi se o šest studenata STEM disciplina koji su dobili priliku da kroz prezentaciju od 3 minute kažu ko su, zašto su tu i šta ih pokreće na poslovnom planu. Bili su zaista izuzetni.

Kratkim sumiranjem utisaka završili smo radni dio prvog dana, dok je ostatak bio rezervisan za networking učesnika.

Drugi dan su nam se priključili i pobjednici challenge-a otvorenog na našoj FB stranici, te tako dobili priliku da pokažu koliko inovativni i kreativni mogu biti kada je riječ o finansiranju svojih ideja, ali da pokažu svoj takmičarski duh i učestvuju u još jednom Challenge-u zajedno sa svim ostalim prezenterima. Prezentovanje je ovoga puta bilo na  temu: “Fundraising plan for______: The event that will contribute to my professional development”. Prezentacija je trebala da kroz tri minute približi ostalim učesnicima, ali i žiriju o kakvom se to događaju radi, zašto baš taj događaj, koji je njegov značaj i koliki bi bio ukupan trošak sa akcentom na strategiju pribavljanja novca.

Tročlani žiri je pažljivo pratio, ocjenjivao i procjenjivao, te najbolje od najboljih nagradio simboličnim novčanim nagradama.

Iako radan, vikend je sve, samo ne protraćen. Vidjeli smo sjajne, kreativne ideje, zatim strategije za fundraising, želju i strast kojom su mladi vođeni na putu do uspjeha.  Uvjerili smo se još jednom da jee mladost BIH talentovana, ambiciozna, odlučna da istraje u borbi protiv prepreka, u borbi za ujedinjenje, borbi za jaču i bolju budućnost.

Cilj akademije je bio, ne samo da studenti pokažu svoje fundraising i prezentacijske vještine, već da vide i kreativnost i inovativnost svojih kolega, te na taj način kombinovanjem različitih tuđih metoda i načina pronađu ili izgrade svoj lični način koji će biti njihov pečat utisnut na profesionalno nebo.