The cloud middle tier and private cloud were hot topics of conversation at Collab15. Members of the IOUG Cloud SIG discuss what's behind the interest.

Members of the IOUG Cloud Computing SIG and Collab15 Cloud track participants discuss how the conversation about cloud has evolved.

What were the hot sessions in the Cloud track at Collab15? Participants in the track discuss their favorites.

What were the key takeaways from the Collab15 cloud track? A panel of people behind that track discuss the ideas they brought home.

The panel discusses performance and other comparisons between BSO, ASO, and Hybrid.

The expert panel panel shares insight into the Oracle BPM features they find the most useful, how those features are being use to deal with real-world BPM problems.

Don't confuse API management with service management. The authors of "Oracle API Management 12c Implementation" discuss the differences.

In the design of process-driven architectures, where are organizations getting it wrong? Where are they getting it right? A panel of experts compares notes.

A panel of experts discusses use cases illustrating modernization strategies for Oracle Forms applications.

As cloud computing grows, the job market will split between cloud providers and cloud consumers. Where you land will depend on your specific skills.

The ODI panelists share their insight into the challenges of launching a Big Data project.

The authors of "Oracle SOA Suite 12c Administrator's Guide" (2015, Packt Publishing) discuss the role, the technology, and the challenges.

What happens when you jam eight experts in Oracle ADF, MAF, Forms and other dev tools into a hotel room and toss in a live microphone? Listen and learn.

Beyond the buzz, what impact is IoT having in the real world? How is it changing enterprise IT? A panel of experts shares their experience and insight.

Are Microservices and APIs Becoming SOA 2.0? Are monolithic applications an anti-pattern? Experts Chris Richardson, Luis Weir, Phil Wilkins, and Boris Scholl address these and other questions in this roundtable discussion.

The previous podcast featured a discussion of chatbot development with a panel of developers who were part of a program that provided early access to the Oracle Intelligent Bots platform available within the Mobile Cloud Service. In this podcast we continue the discussion of chatbot development with an entirely new panel of developers who also had the opportunity to work with that same Intelligent Bots beta release.

• Oracle ACE Director Mia Urman is Chief Executive Officer of AuraPlayer Limited. She’s based in Brookline, Massachusetts.
• Peter Crew is Director at SDS Group, and Chief Technical Officer with MagiaCX Solutions, in Perth, Australia
• And Christoph Ruepprich is Infrastructure Senior Principal with Accenture Enkitec Group. He’s based in Dallas, TX

In this program Mia, Peter, and Christoph compare notes on the particular challenges that defined their chatbot development experiences, and discuss what they did to meet those challenges.

Forget the hype! Which technologies made a genuine difference in the work of software developers over the past year? For this podcast we gathered five highly respected developers in a tiny hotel room in San Francisco, tossed in a couple of microphones, and let the conversation happen.

The panelists for this podcast are busy, working developers with stellar reputations:

(Listed alphabetically)

• Lonneke Dikmans, Chief Product Officer at eProseed. Utrecht, NL
• Lucas Jellema, Chief Technical Officer at AMIS Services. Rotterdam, NL
• Frank Munz, software architect and Cloud Evangelist at Munz and More. Munich, DE
• Pratik Patel, Chief Technical Officer at Triplingo and president of the Atlanta Java Users Group. Atlanta, US
• Chris Richardson, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Eventuate Incorporated. San Francisco, US

This wide-ranging conversation spans containers, microservices, PaaS, IoT, machine learning, and much, much more. Listen!

Chatbots. You’ve heard of them. You’ve read about them. You may even be involved in developing them. By a wide margin, one of the most popular Oracle Developer podcasts in the last several months was Chatbot Development, First Steps and Lessons Learned - Part 1 which was published back in September of 2017. So it’s safe to say that chatbots remain a hot topic. So you may be surprised to learn that the conversation you are about to hear doesn’t really focus on chatbots, at least, not directly. Instead, the panel discusses the AI work they're currently involved in, the AI challenges they face, and other issues relevant to developing AI solutions.

View the complete show notes.

American inventor Thomas Edison, once said, “Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something.” What we hope to accomplish with this episode of the Groundbreaker Podcast is an exploration of the idea that the evolution in today’s architectures makes it advantageous, perhaps even necessary, to challenge some long-established concepts that have achieved “golden rule” status as they apply to the use of databases.

View the complete show notes.

Oracle Groundbreakers Podcast #368 features a conversation with the winners of the 2019 Oracle Groundbreaker Awards. The discussion covers their career journeys, their thoughts on where software development is today, and on where it’s going tomorrow.

View the complete show notes.

Community Manager Javed Mohammed catches up with the leaders of the Oracle Groundbreakers Latin America Tour.

A group of organizers and presenters from the 12-country Oracle Groundbreakers Latin America Tour 2019 recap the the event over delicious Pakistani food while in San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld.

In this program Suhas Uliyar (Vice President of Mobile Strategy Product Management for Oracle) and Mark Johnson (Chief AI Scientist, Oracle Digital Assistant product team) discuss artificial intelligence, what’s new in the Oracle Digital Assistant platform, and why data is the new oil.

Bob Quillin, Vice President of Oracle Cloud Developer Relations, joins guest host Javed Mohammed to explain his tech predictions for 2020, which cover the cloud, open source, Kubernetes, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and more.

 See the complete show notes.

Community Managers Bob Rhubart and Javed Mohammed share the best of 25 years of Java.

May 23, 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the first appearance of the Java programming language, as designed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems. Despite the emergence of a number of competing languages over the years, Java, under Oracle’s stewardship since 2010, remains one of the most widely used languages in software development. It runs on 3 billion devices worldwide, and is used by more than 12 million developers.

In recognition of this milestone in Java’s evolution, we sought the insight of people who regularly work with Java. We wanted their perspectives on the significance of this anniversary, and on the intersection of Java and their lives, professional and otherwise. As you'll hear, for these people, Java is so much more than a technology.

The term “low code” has been around since it was coined by a Forrester Research analyst in 2014. The concept was originally intended to allow so-called “citizen developers” -- those whose business acumen exceeds their coding skill -- to develop applications. But in the ensuing years low code platforms such as Oracle Application Express (APEX) and Oracle Visual Builder have found fans among experienced professional developers. In this program a panel or expert developers explores the use of low code platforms and why they have captured the attention of coding pros.

Read the complete show notes here.

Photo by ThisIsEngineering from Pexels

Jim Grisanzio talks with Oracle Sr. Product Manager Avi Miller on a variety of Open Source projects at the company, some history about Oracle's involvement in the Linux community, how people can contribute to FOSS projects generally -- and a bit of Legos development at the end. 

• Avi Miller (Twitter)
• Jim Grisanzio (Twitter)
• Video on YouTube
• Blog 1
• Blog 2 

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Jim Grisanzio from the Oracle Developer Relations Team talks with Simerjeet Singh in this extensive conversation about how to deal with the massive change we are all experiencing in 2020. Simerjeet is a noted motivational speaker, entrepreneur, and performance coach in India, and he was the keynote speaker at last year's Oracle Groundbreakers Sangam 19 Conference in Hyderabad, which is the annual event from the All India Oracle User Group (AIOUG).

In December 2019 Simerjeet was the keynote speaker at the All India Oracle Users Group's annual conference, Sangam, in Hyderabad, India (photos). He spoke about thriving in a "VUCA World" -- Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous). See our interview here on YouTube right after his keynote. Our conversation in this podcast episode (video here) is a recent follow up to that initial meeting at Sangam 19. We talk about some of the challenges 2020 has brought into our lives and how developers and administrators can adapt and thrive when situations are totally out of control.

Managing massive change and thriving in the chaos of 2020

• https://www.oracle.com/news/connect/managing-massive-change-and-thriving-in-the-chaos-of-2020.html 
• https://youtu.be/0Ttpfeucyak 

Simerjeet on the Web

• https://twitter.com/SimerjeetSingh 
• https://www.simerjeetsingh.com/ 
• https://www.youtube.com/user/CuttingEdgeINDIA 

OGYatra 2020

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPIzp-E1msraCFAAY7aEVdRrhgCleboiN 

OGYatra 2019

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwfImoydiSstJGaogJFnda9oe3Tvnmc8K 

Sangam 19

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwfImoydiSsuUB94zfUNDluAnvwIEe_qI 

All India Oracle Users Group

• https://www.aioug.org/ 

Interview with Simerjeet at Sangam 19 in Hyderabad in December 2019

• https://youtu.be/BnbBk8O9C5w 

Jim Grisanzio on Building Communities

• https://youtu.be/gz7nMtWaUB0 

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Hackmakers: Part 4: Jim Grisanzio talks with Amanda Bennett, Tamara Orth, and Alistair Hofert, about their experiences being mentors at the Hackmakers World Innovation Day Hackathon in April 2021. The conversation ranged from what tools and platforms were used, what projects were worked, who the participants were, and the overall passion everyone brought to the event. Oracle and other organizations sponsored the event in collaboration with UNESCO and UNEP. The areas of focus for the projects included health, education, and work -- all based on the larger list of United Nations world development goals.

• Amanda Bennett, Innovation Specialist, Qrius Alliance
• Alistair Hofert, Co-Founder, Synapse Squared
• Tamara Orth, President, QUT BANDS
• Jim Grisanzio, Sr. Community Manager, Oracle
• Hackmakers

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

From the Archives | February 2020, Honolulu Hawaii

Jim Grisanzio talks with Gerald Venzl from Oracle and Chris Thalinger from Twitter at UnVoxxed Hawaii 2020 about the un-conference format, the technical sessions, the mix of conference attendees, and some of the activities people took in during the three day event. 

• Jim Grisanzio https://twitter.com/jimgris
• Chris Thalinger https://twitter.com/christhalinger
• Gerald Venzl https://twitter.com/GeraldVenzl
• Sanbox Conference Center https://sandboxhawaii.org/
• YouTube Video https://youtu.be/nEIngyumfz8

This is part of the "From the Archives" series I'm posting occasionally to revisit some of the interesting personalities I've spoken to and the places where we've been building community here at Oracle. It's nice to look back every now and then. What you'll notice right away is a totally different energy when we're at an event working closely face-to-face. We all miss it. Hopefully we'll return to the road some day. For now, though, let's always remember and never forget. Cheers. ♥︎

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

From the Archives | December 2019 | Sangam 19, Hyderabad, India

Jim Grisanzio talks with Sandesh Rao and Sai Penumuru about the technology announcements at Sangam 2019 in Hyderabad and also the Sangam and OGYatra development community. In the discussion, Sai and Sandesh covered all the technology announcements Oracle made at the event, and all the community development activities that were taking place at the time. 

Video from the 2019 Interview
https://youtu.be/xvIlOlK0lek 

Sai Penumuru, President, AIOUG
https://twitter.com/sai_penumuru

Sandesh Rao, VP, AIOps, Oracle
https://twitter.com/sandeshr 

All India Oracle Users Group
http://www.aioug.org/ 

Sangam 19 Conference Website
http://www.aioug.org/sangam19/ 

Images from Sangam 19
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmJYoaz3 

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Mirela Ardelean about building the Oracle developer community and also the upcoming Oracle Groundbreakers EMEA Virtual Tour 2021 — October 15-29. There will be 70 speakers presenting Oracle technologies over 11 days to 10 UGs! Video on YouTube. Get involved with the event here.

Mirela Ardelean, Oracle ACE, Founder and VP of the Romanian Oracle User Group, Board member of EOUC

• https://twitter.com/Mirela_RoOUG
• http://ogbemea.com

Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations

• https://twitter.com/jimgris
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/
• https://developer.oracle.com/team/
• https://oraclegroundbreakers.libsyn.com/

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Oracle ACE Director Francisco Alvarez Munoz about the upcoming APAC Oracle Groundbreakers APAC Virtual Tour. The event takes place over two weeks starting on November 22 and running through December 7. Thousands of developers are expected to participate along with 100 speakers talking about a variety of topics, such as Java, Database, Cloud, APEX, Developer Tools, Data Science, and more. The event schedule will be posted soon. Check the links below and get involved. Video on YouTube.

Francisco Alvarez Munoz, Oracle ACE Director & President of the APAC Oracle User Community

• https://twitter.com/fcomunoz
• https://twitter.com/apacouc
• https://apacgbt.mykommu.com/

Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations

• https://twitter.com/jimgris
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/
• https://developer.oracle.com/team/
• https://oraclegroundbreakers.libsyn.com/

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Oracle ACE Director Rita Nunez from Argentina to preview the upcoming 2021 LAOUC Evento de Primavera November 9-10. The event will be held online in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, and it's free and open to developers globally. Technologies discussed will be Oracle Database, security, APEX, Java, development tools, cloud, and more. Get involved here.

Rita Nunez, Oracle ACE Director

• https://twitter.com/ritan2000 

Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations

• https://twitter.com/jimgris 
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/ 
• https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 
• https://oraclegroundbreakers.libsyn.com/ 

In this archives episode Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Аlina Yurenko from Oracle on the GraalVM Project. The conversation took place in February 2020 at the Jfokus Java conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Alina talks about the state of the GraalVM project, the community, and Jfokus. Also see the video on YouTube.

Jim Grisanzio talks with John Spurling, a JVM engineer at Twitter, at UnVoxxed Hawaii 2020 about debugging and the mental process of solving difficult technical issues.

John Spurling, Twitter
https://twitter.com/synecdotal 

Jim Grisanzio, Java Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris 

Video on YouTube
https://youtu.be/6dwOPQSJwaI 

UnVoxxed Hawaii
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmLF23KD 
https://twitter.com/UnVoxxedHawaii 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX8CzqL3ArzU0APb6QgpMMTMPEz1jok5Q 

Seymour Cray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Cray 

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning 
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learning/dp/0674729013 

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with Bruno Souza about his Lifetime Achievement Award for 25 years of building the Java community in Brazil and around the world. The award was presented during the keynote at JavaOne Las Vegas 2022.

Bruno Souza, Brazilian JavaMan
https://twitter.com/brjavaman

Jim Grisanzio, Duke's Corner Podcast Host
https://twitter.com/jimgris

Podcast Video
https://youtu.be/3XDgaxx6iu0

Award Presentation at JavaOne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g59PMSk1oAE&t=2534s

Dev Java
https://dev.java/

Inside Java
https://inside.java/

Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with Stéphane Nicoll, a software engineer based in Belgium working on the Spring team. Stéphane talks about his experience becoming a Java developer, his observations seeing Java evolve and improve, and the importance of contributing to Java and Open Source generally. He's keen on building community by directly engaging engineers at events as well as mentoring contributors through the development process for issue reports and code changes. He said that "building our community is super important for us" as he outlined the process that he and his team uses to welcome new developers. That says it all.

Get Stéphane on Twitter @snicoll and get Jim on Twitter @jimgris

Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with Richard Fichtner, a Java developer from Germany who is also a JUG leader and an Oracle ACE Pro. The conversation previews the upcoming JCON Europe 2024 Conference in Cologne, which will have 100 sessions of core Java technologies and a thousand Java developers from around the world. Richard and the JCON organizing team will be trying some new things this year to facilitate community engagement at JCON so if you are around Germany May 13-16 you are encouraged to stop by and participate. Oracle will be sponsoring the event and will send three teams of engineers to contribute sessions — Java, GraalVM, and Oracle Database. Don't miss it! We hear the food will be great!

Richard: https://twitter.com/RichardFichtner

JCON: https://twitter.com/jcon_conference

Jim: https://twitter.com/jimgris 

VIENNA, 16 June 2016 - OSCE Heads of Delegations will visit the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) from 19 to 22 June 2016, where they will learn more about the Mission’s work and see first-hand how post-conflict rehabilitation and reform is progressing in the country.

The ambassadors of the OSCE participating States will visit Sarajevo and Travnik. They plan to meet BiH Presidency members; the BiH Minister of Foreign Affairs; representatives of the Inter-Religious Council, international organizations, media and civil society; and visit a storage site for weapons taken out of use.

The visit will focus on areas where the OSCE is working to help build a peaceful, stable future for the country, including education; tolerance and non-discrimination; countering violent extremism; and post-conflict reconciliation, specifically focusing on questions relating to war crimes and sexual violence in conflict.
 
Ambassador Sian MacLeod, Head of the UK Delegation to the OSCE, who is leading the ambassadorial visit, said Heads of Delegations are looking forward to visiting BiH - an OSCE participating State where the organization invests significant time and resources - and are keen to demonstrate their support for the OSCE Mission’s work.

“I am grateful to the German Chairmanship for asking me to organize this visit, demonstrating the continuing commitment of OSCE states to security and stability in the Western Balkans,” said Ambassador MacLeod. “I hope that our visit will underline the importance of reconciliation and reform for a secure, prosperous future for the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
 
Ambassador Jonathan Moore, Head of the OSCE Mission to BiH, expressed his confidence that the trip will foster understanding among Heads of Delegations of the country and the Mission’s role, including its work at the local level.
 
For questions related to the visit, please contact: Zeljka.Sulc@osce.org and Andrew.Peebles@fco.gov.uk       

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VIENNA, 15 June 2016 – The twentieth anniversary of the Agreement on Sub-Regional Arms Control Agreement, which served as a framework for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia to engage with each other in order to promote peace and stability in the region, was marked today in Vienna.

Almir Sahovic, Assistant Minister for Multilateral Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, stressed that today was a good opportunity to reflect on the path the region went through in the last 20 years. “Our region was a synonym for problems and a source of instability. Our friends from the OSCE family and international community used to send military and police forces to help us sustain peace and stability. Today, we are the ones contributing with military and diplomatic missions to peace and stability around the world.”

The Agreement remains highly relevant for stability in the region as well as for the entire OSCE area and serves as a model for other OSCE regions.

“We see that the four State parties show mutual understanding, professionalism and confidence in their joint treaty activities,” said Chairperson of the OSCE Permanent Council and Permanent Representative of Germany to the OSCE Eberhard Pohl. “The Agreement continues to play a useful role in maintaining military stability in South Eastern Europe by promoting co-operation, transparency and predictability. Key to this is upholding the common political will for good development in the future. The members of the contact group stand ready to further support these activities.”

The Director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre Marcel Pesko highlighted how the commitments from the Article IV of Dayton Peace Agreement became actions. “The four countries of the region proved they can establish a stable military balance, reducing the risk of a new escalation of the conflict. This would not be possible without courage and political will to move the process forward.”

The ceremony included a photo-exhibition dedicated to the process of implementation of the Agreement. Distinguished individuals and organizations from the region received special recognition for their contribution to the process.

Bosnia and Hercegovina is currently a Chair of Sub-Regional Consultative Commission in accordance with Article IV, Annex 1-B to the Dayton Agreement.

Learn more about the transfer of ownership of regional stability and how targets of arms control were achieved even beyond the set limits.

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The Model OSCE is a simulation game that reproduces an OSCE Permanent Council meeting during a crisis situation.

Participants will each represent an OSCE participating State and work together to resolve the crisis.

The OSCE Mission to Moldova is looking for students who would like to participate in the Model OSCE 2016. The participants will receive essential negotiation skills training from an international OSCE expert.

Participation in the event is free of charge. Accommodation, transportation and meals will be provided by the OSCE Mission to Moldova for the duration of the event.

The application form can be downloaded here. It should be sent along with the applicant’s CV to Sergiu.Cotorobai@osce.org by 11 July 2016.

Good governance in the OSCE area – reinforcing security and stability through co-operation - is the theme of the 2016 OSCE Economic and Environmental Forum. Good governance remains high on the agenda. During the three-days meeting participants will discuss various issues related to good governance, as well as environmental governance as a basis for business climate and sustainable economic development. The Forum Meeting will consider the role of the private sector in fighting corruption and money laundering, evaluate aspects of trade facilitation, as well as migration governance for economic growth, stability and security.

The Concluding Meeting of the Forum will take place on 14-16 September 2016 in Prague and will focus on various aspects of good governance:

• Good governance and its impact on business climate and sustainable economic development
• The role of the private sector in fighting corruption, money-laundering and financing of terrorism for strengthening stability and security
• Trade facilitation measures and good governance in supply chains
• Good environmental governance and its impact on economic development, stability and security
• Good migration governance and labour market integration

The Meeting will also review the implementation of OSCE commitments relevant to the theme of the 24th Economic and Environmental Forum.

​The Economic and Environmental Forum is the main meeting within the Second Dimension of the OSCE. Its objectives are to identify needs and priorities, to raise awareness, to share best practices and to stimulate deeper political dialogue and the will of the 57 OSCE participating States in dealing with economic, environmental and security related challenges. It also provides a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue with representatives of International Organizations, the business and academic communities, and civil society.

The 2016 Concluding Meeting builds upon the results stemmed from the two Preparatory Meetings held in Vienna on 25-26 January, and in Berlin on 19-20 May 2016. This year it will examine the level of implementation of OSCE commitments while deepening OSCE’s engagement in the aforementioned areas.

The first meeting of the ‘Follow Us’ Initiative for 2016, facilitated by the OSCE Mission in Kosovo and the OSCE Mission to Serbia, took place in Skopje from 12 to 14 February 2016. The meeting brought together 18 prominent women working in politics, media, academia and civil society from Prishtinë/Priština and Belgrade, to take stock of achievements and plan future activities.

The participants reviewed the initiative’s successes such as the Dialogue Academy for young women from Belgrade and Prishtinë/Priština, and the promotion of the dialogue through the ‘Follow Us’ documentary. They recognized the importance of furthering the inclusion of more women in this process in order to expand the dialogue across different sectors and agreed on an action plan of concrete activities for 2016. Additionally they developed longer-term frameworks for action in key areas affecting women’s lives and equality.

In a joint statement, the members of ‘Follow Us’ Initiative said: “We agreed to implement joint activities in the following areas: economic empowerment of women, gender in education, prevention of gender-based violence, political participation and representation of women at all levels, engendering media and the portrayal of women in media and public life, and promotion of dialogue among youth.

We also reconfirm the importance of dialogue and co-operation and highlight the contribution of women to it by taking concrete steps to bring the two societies closer together.”

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The OSCE Mission in Kosovo and the OSCE Mission to Serbia, for the second consecutive year, will organize the Dialogue Academy for Young Women as part of the Follow Us initiative. The initiative gathers prominent women from politics, academia, media and civil society from Belgrade and Prishtinë/Priština and supports the process of dialogue, reconciliation and confidence-building between the two societies.

The purpose of the Academy is to empower young women by educating them on issues relating to women’s role in promoting dialogue, reconciliation, and co-operation. The 2016 edition of the programme builds upon last year’s experience and success whereby 22 young women from Prishtinë/Priština and Belgrade had the opportunity to participate in a series of instructive lectures and team-building exercises and be part of a wide network of activists and experts in the fields of women empowerment, women in politics, dialogue and reconciliation.

This year, 24 female students of social science and young professionals in the areas of media, politics, and civil society will be attending the Academy programme from 30 September to 9 October 2016, organized at the Peace Castle Schlaining, Austria. 

Graduates from the Academy will become Dialogue alumni and are expected to create their own alumni network which will enable them to design and implement joint projects, following the example of the 2015 OSCE Dialogue Academy alumni.

For more information on the application please click here.

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The final public consultations on the content of the new National Action Plan (NAP) for the implementation of the UN SCR 1325 – Women, Peace and Security (2016-2020) was held on 10 June 2016 in Belgrade at the premises of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia.

The OSCE Mission to Serbia, jointly with the Serbian Government's Office for Co-operation with Civil Society, and the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, supported the Working Group in the drafting process of the NAP by organizing public consultations across Serbia.

The consultations were held in the towns of Nis, Vranje, Novi Pazar, Krusevac, Novi Sad and Belgrade. During the meetings, participants welcomed that the new NAP raises the profile of local activities and that it places an emphasis on improved co-ordinated action, both at the local and national levels.

The main objective of the new NAP is to improve the safety and security of women through the implementation of UN SCR 1325 in the areas of prevention, participation, relief and recovery, and to increase involvement of women at the local level.

Participants included some 250 high-ranking officials of the Serbian Government and representatives of civil society organizations, and the media.

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