Prof. Dafna Schwartz was keynote speaker at Zagreb's first OBRAD conference

The Zagreb newspaper Jutarnji List (interview here) was particularly interested in interviewing Prof. Schwartz to hear her take on how entrepreneurship can mitigate the widespread unemployment in Croatia, and to hear about her programs such as the one she has implemented in Brazil with her MBA students in the innovation & entrepreneurship track. “our program in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in an Emerging Economy: Brazil, for example, this kind of student cooping is so fantastic in how student projects can effectively impact a local business economy such as we are doing in Ceará, Brazil, to upgrade SME’s, change traditional thought processes that may be a cause of stagnation, boost the economy with entrepreneurship training,” comments Prof. Schwartz. She goes on, “because traditional thought dictated that entrepreneurship and innovation were not classroom subjects but rather innate personality characteristics: either you have it or you don’t.  But it’s not true. We have been proving this for two decades at the (GGFBM) where we instituted the first Entrepreneurship and Innovation study track in our MBA program. This is new thinking.”

This kind of new thinking is just what Croatia is striving to generate, starting with the annual OBRAD Conference, aiming to create a different, more contemporary and more constructive education” than currently exists in Croatia, to trigger the means for of economic growth and sustainability.​

Prof. Schwartz’s impression of this first OBRAD conference was that Israel is viewed as “a great hope and inspiration to emerging economies around the world.” Two other sessions by leading Israeli thinkers were held, and an additional one entitled What can be learned from Israel presented by Amb. Zina Kalay Kleitman and by Prof. DraganPrimorac of the Croatian-Israeli Business Club.​