Our Creative Spark: In Conversation with Entrepreneurs online session will introduce the participants to a successful entrepreneur from Georgia, who will share her advice and experience in entrepreneurship focusing on the publishing industry. This is the first webinar of the Creative Spark sessions which will bring together the higher education students and established entrepreneurs in Georgia for live online discussions.
About the speakers:
Zaza Purtseladze, moderator
Zaza is a Director Britsh Council in the South Caucasus and Georgia. Zaza has been working for the British Council in various roles since 2001 before becoming the Country Director Georgia in 2011 and taking up the role of Director South Caucasus in 2018.
Since 2011, Zaza Purtseladzehas led on several change projects in the British Council Georgia and developed the major strategic partnerships between the key Georgian and UK stakeholders. Under his leadership, the British Council Georgia team became the runner up in the British Council’s Entrepreneurial Public Service Award Competition in 2015. In the same year, Zaza received the British Council Global Leadership Award for his contribution to the development and enrichment of educational and cultural links between Georgia and the UK.
Gvantsa Jobava
Gvantsa is serving the Publishing industry at a national and international level. She holds 3 major offices; Editor/International Relations Manager, Intelekti Publishing/ Artanuji Publishing, Chairperson at Georgian Publishers and Booksellers Association and Executive Committee member at International Publishers Association. She is the organizer of Tbilisi International Bookfair and member of women publishers’ international network PublisHer.
Since 2013, Gvantsa Jobava has been lobbying for the Georgian publishing industry, advocating Georgian publishers’ interests and rights, promoting book readings and organizing different kinds of book promotion events in Georgia.
She has managed a wealth of projects to promote the Georgian publishing and literary industry internationally, including Georgia’s ‘guest of honour’ publishing program at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair and she is one of the managers of Tbilisi’s designation as UNESCO World Book Capital 2021.
She has participated in innumerable book fairs and fellowship programmes around the world.
In 2017 and 2018 at Frankfurt Book Fair she organized Georgia writers’ and publishers’ peaceful performances ‘STOP RUSSIA’ against the Russian occupation. In 2017 she also organized Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich’s visit to Georgia.
She is the poet and translator of John Steinbeck, Chinua Achebe, Saul Bellow and others. She also translated Anna Politkovskaya’s book ‘Putin’s Russia” into Georgian.