Upwardly Global Hosted Panel Discussion on Immigrant Contributions to New York's Economy

Upwardly Global, in partnership with LaGuardia Community College, successfully hosted its first panel discussion on April 22 during the 6th Annual Immigrant Heritage Week. The panel, which focused on the topic of immigrant contributions to New York's economy, included key speakers from Sovereign Bank, Fiscal Policy Institute and the Center for an Urban Future.

Nikki Cicerani, Executive Director of Upwardly Global officially opened the event along with Jane Schulman, the Vice President of LaGuardia Community College, and Councilman Kendal Stewart. Amongst those attending were representatives of organizations including the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, Allied African Nations Chamber of Commerce, Asian Americans for Equality, NYC Department of Small Business Services, Office of the NYS Senate Majority Leader, Malcolm Smith NY State Senate, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, World Education Services, The New York Immigration Coalition, and YWCA.

The success of this event provided Upwardly Global with a unique opportunity to communicate its message about the value of immigrant professionals being included in NY's workforce, in addition to raising awareness about our services through press coverage provided from The World Journal, Times Ledger, and Asian Journal.

Other outcomes of the event include partnership discussions with the following organizations:

• The International Institute of New Jersey,
• The New York Foundation for the Arts,
• The Counsel for Latino and Immigrant Affairs of Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith and Julia Parnas, Immigrant Community Liaison, Bureau of Refugee & Immigrant Assistance NYS OTDA,
• The African Allied Nation Chamber of Commerce

Partners of Upwardly Global and participants of the event acknowledged the value of attending, as reflected in their testimonials:

"Thank you again for the wonderful event that you put on today. I was very impressed, and the panel discussion was very interesting and insightful." Andrea Gold, International Institute of New Jersey

"I just wanted to say thank you so much for the invitation - I really enjoyed the event, and thought that you guys did a great job organizing it." Joseph Christo, NYC Department of Small Business Services

"I just wanted to say to both of you again how wonderful the event was. I think the College and Upwardly Global together made great synergy and the enthusiastic response from the audience was certainly evidence of that. We should certainly try to make this an annual event!" Suma Kuriens, Director for the Center for Immigrant Education & Training at LaGuardia Community College