THE SLOVAK American Foundation (SAF), created last year as a legacy foundation of the Slovak American Enterprise Fund, offers two kinds of scholarships: the Professional Internship Program and the Research Scholar Program. Both programmes have evoked strong interest among Slovaks after concluding two very successful rounds with a high number of applicants.
The Professional Internship Program is open to university students and recent graduates with a focus on entrepreneurship, providing a scholarship of up to $30,000 to spend up to 12 months in the United States. The Research Scholar Program is open to professors and academic researchers with a focus on entrepreneurship, providing a scholarship of up to $60,000 to spend up to 12 months in the United States.
Ten graduate students from Comenius University, the University of Economics in Bratislava and the Slovak University of Technology with degrees in business and engineering with a strong entrepreneurial focus were selected last year for the Professional Internship Program and SAF is looking for a new group of candidates, primarily from universities outside Bratislava.
Marek Nemčovič, assistant professor of the Department of Glycobiology of the Institute of Chemistry of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, was selected as a recipient of a grant from the Research Scholar Program. The first group of scholarship recipients have departed for the United States.
The scholarships from the Slovak American Foundation are managed by the Council on International Educational Exchange, CIEE. The deadline for applying for the next round of scholarships is April 15, 2012, and recipients will be notified by June 15, 2012. Scholarship winners will depart for the US in the fall of 2012. Interested students and professors can find more information at www.SlovakAmericanFoundation.org or by contacting Kati Szalay, SAF recruitment coordinator, on +421 915 613 802 or by email: kszalay@slovakamericanfoundation.org).
The Slovak American Enterprise Fund started in 1996 and has played a role in Slovakia’s economic and social transformation, investing $37.2 million altogether, part of it in equity and part in loans. Its small loan programme provided funds to 26 companies in different regions of Slovakia and its initial investments were in agriculture, wood and food products. As a new generation of entrepreneurs emerged, the fund provided seed capital for start-up companies in knowledge-based industries such as software, IT, the internet, and communications .
