TROY — Five years ago, Jolanta Niezgodska became the youngest elected councilor in the Polish city of Wroclaw.
And last week, she hopped on a plane with five other women leaders from Poland and headed to the United States for the first time. Their destination: the Capital Region, where the delegation will be participating in conversations surrounding women in entrepreneurship.
Hosted by the International Center of the Capital Region, the participants were selected through the Congressional Office for International Leadership’s Open World exchange program.
“I’m looking forward to asking politicians how do they try to solve all those issues which are brought to their attention, and I’m also interested in how politicians in the U.S.A find ways to help LGBT people and women and how they support their situations,” Niezgodska said via a translator.
The delegates represent a variety of fields in the political, civil and business sectors of their communities, from financial services to public relations, and all arrived in Albany with specific professional and personal development goals. For most of them, the flight into Albany International Airport last Friday marked their first visit to the United States.
On Monday afternoon, representatives from Empire State Development held a conference with the delegation to highlight important and powerful women in the Capital Region and discuss the state agency’s incentives and programs, including its Division of Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR), Global NY Grant Fund program and Regional Economic Development Council.
Much of the conversation revolved around the state’s 30 percent goal for utilizing minority and women-owned business enterprises for state contracts. “Why 30 and not 50 percent if we are talking about inequality?” one woman asked.
Heidi Knoblauch,…
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