On September 30, ISET hosted Dwight Nystrom, Chief of Political and Economic Affairs of the US Embassy. His presentation was titled: “The Reach and Limitations of American Economic Power” and it was focused on US’s footprint on the global economy. Mr. Nystrom also discussed US economic conditions within different sections. According to the data he provided, the US share of GDP in global GDP began declining in 2000 and after the 2008 global financial crisis, it began to fall even more sharply.

Malkhaz Shashiashvili, professor of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU) visited ISET on Thursday, September 17th to present his recent paper "Discrete-Time Hedging of the American Option" co-authored with S. Hussain, professor of Government College University. Since his talk contained very complicated mathematical methods, Prof. Shashiashvili started the presentation by giving definitions and keywords, in order to make it accessible for a general audience.

On Monday, 8th of June, Zurab Abramishvili from the CERGE-EI (Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute) presented his research proposal titled “The Principal Principle: How an Immediate and Random Replacement of School Principals Illuminates Their Value Added; A Case of Education Policy in Georgia”. Mr. Abramishvili is an ISET graduate in 2010, currently, he is doing postdoctoral work at ISET.

On Friday, June 5th, ISET hosted Mr. Rezo Vashakidze, the founder of Chirina Ltd, by far the largest Georgian producer of poultry products (sold under the BiuBiu brand), a Greenfield investment worth more than 80 mln USD. The main topic of Mr. Vashakidze’s presentation was entrepreneurship in Georgia (as well as Azerbaijan and Armenia).

On Friday, June 5th ISET hosted Loredana Sorg, Mercator Fellow of International Affairs, who gave a presentation titled "The Georgian Hazelnut Value Chain and the Potential of Cooperatives". The objective of the study was to understand how and at which level value is added, to identify critical elements for a competitive hazelnut production in Georgia, and to reflect the potential of cooperatives for the development of the value chain and in particular for organic fair-trade hazelnuts.