Under the motto of “New investment perspectives in the homeland”, the Albanian Diaspora Business Chamber organized a roundtable of partners with representatives of the Albanian Government, the Municipality of Tirana, international and local organizations, and institutions operating in Albania. “Fly with Albania” and “Financial Instrument of the Diaspora”, are two project ideas designed by the Diaspora Chamber of Commerce, which have as main focus the economic development of the country through the promotion of investments of Albanians from our Diaspora.
Beyond the entrepreneurial Diaspora, special attention received the importance of the Scientific Diaspora which focuses on the capacity building of human capital, as one of the most important factors in the development of Albanian society. The Albanian American Development Foundation introduced the Research Expertise from the Academic Diaspora (READ), which aims to establish a sustainable collaboration between the Scientific Diaspora and Higher Education Institutions in Albania with the aim of strengthening institutional capacity and the quality of scientific research.
The high interest of academics from the Diaspora to contribute to their country of origin was noticed also in the first call of the READ Program, with about 300 applications focused mainly on: collaborative research, joint supervision of PhDs, curricula, course development, and co-teaching. AADF will support through the READ Program about 100 Academics from the Diaspora for the next 7 years with a budget of 2.7 M USD.