America for Bulgaria Foundation in partnership with Babson College in Boston, MA, USA

Leadership Education in America Program (LEAP)

Date: 05 October 2022

This Privacy policy (the “Policy”) is prepared for the purpose of the Leadership Education in America Program (“LEAP” or the “Program”) designed and funded by the America for Bulgaria Foundation (the “Foundation”, “ABF” or “we”) and administered by Babson College in Boston, MA, USA (“Babson” or the “College”). The Policy is intended to inform you about how we process your personal data as an applicant and selected participant in the Program. Please, also read the Privacy Policy of the America for Bulgaria Foundation available at www.us4bg.org, ABF’s official website, which contains detailed information on how the Foundation processes personal data of users of its pages.

The Foundation will process the personal data of the applicants and participants in the Program in accordance with the applicable legislation, the guiding principles, values and ethical rules announced on our website.

Application and selection process

To apply for the Program, you must complete the mandatory application fields on the landing page: (https://us4bg.org/leadership-education-in-america-program), developed for the purposes of the Program, and submit a filled-in application form. When applying you are required to provide certain information including your personal data: names, age, citizenship, current place of residence, phone number, email, information about your education, professional experience, internship, academic honors, awards, hobbies, volunteer work, etc. We need this data for the purposes of reviewing and evaluating your application. If you are selected for participation in the Program, you will be required to provide additional information incl. personal data, as described below, which is necessary to ensure your participation in the Program, organize and conduct the related short-term training in the USA, secure your residence in the US and provide you with accommodation during the training, as well as for possible further analysis and evaluation of the results of the Program and its publicity.

Our key partner for the LEAP Program will be Babson College – a premier American educational institution located in Boston, MA, USA, which will conduct and host the Program in the US and will determine and implement its core learning modules. ABF and Babson College have entered into a grant agreement that implies exchange of data and information about applicants and participants in the Program. This exchange is necessary for the implementation of the Program and its funding, as well as to provide you with the opportunity to apply and participate in the LEAP Program, and to ensure to the maximum extent your interest and benefits of the training. In addition, your personal data may also be processed for the purposes of protecting your or another person’s vital interests during your participation in the Program, as well as for the purposes of the legitimate interests of the Foundation and the College in conducting the Program and enable you to participate in it which are not overridden by your fundamental rights and freedoms. ABF and Babson College will jointly control the processing of your application related data for the purposes of the selection procedure according to detailed written commitments. The personal data related to your participation in the leadership training in the US will be handled by Babson College according to its data privacy policies and procedures (please, refer to www.babson.edu/privacy-policy/). The transfer of your data to the US is subject to the Standard Contractual Clauses for international transfers, as adopted and last modified by the European Commission.

During the application process you provide us with certain personal data by filling-in the mandatory fields on the application page and completing and submitting the application form. We need this information to evaluate whether you meet the criteria for participation in the Program and make an adequate and fair assessment of your application as well as to enable you to participate in the different stages of the selection process as outlined on the landing page.

Your submitted application will be reviewed and assessed by a selection committee comprised by representatives of ABF and evaluated according to predefined selection criteria as defined in the description of the Program available on the landing page. At ABF’s discretion external experts might be invited to participate in the selection committee. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to an individual online video interview with the members of the selection committee through a reliable and secure video conference connection (e.g. Zoom, Microsoft Teams). In this case, your personal data (name, email, image, voice) collected during the interview will be processed by the selection committee only for the purpose of evaluating your performance in the selection process.

Applicants who successfully pass the video interviews will be shortlisted and invited to participate in a two-hour virtual module hosted and organized by Babson College through a secure web and video conference connection WebEx where you will be required to enter your name and email to join the module. To secure your participation in the virtual module ABF will provide Babson with the following information about the 40 selected candidates: names, age, title/position, industry, employer organization. For the purposes of your active participation in the module video camera, microphone and chat need to be enabled and your personal data such as name, email, image, voice will be visible during the video conference and might be recorded by the College, which will be further communicated to you by Babson. ABF and Babson will process these data solely for the purpose of evaluating your performance in the selection process and they will not be disclosed or passed on to third parties.

Please, note that participants in the virtual module might be required to provide contact information of two individuals (names, phone numbers) as a reference who might be contacted by members of the selection committee for a reference call or be required to fill-in an online recommendation form sent to the references by the Foundation. The contact details of the references will be processed by ABF only for the purposes of the selection process. Please note that you have the responsibility to inform your reference contacts about the processing of their data and to obtain their consent, if needed.

To ensure transparency and good faith of the selection process, ABF will announce the results and will publish the names of the applicants selected for participation in the Program on the dedicated landing page, ABF’s website, monthly newsletter, as well as on its profiles in social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The Foundation also will use the email address you provided in the application form to inform you of the result of the evaluation of your application.

Participation in LEAP Program

All selected participants for the US Program will attend a pre-departure orientation weekend (Friday evening through Sunday) organized by the Foundation with the collaboration of the College. Before departure, approved participants should provide additional information to ABF including personal data such as passport and visa details, necessary for the air travel to and entry in the United States, which ABF will provide to а selected travel agency for the purposes of purchasing the airline tickets. Your passport and visa details also will be submitted to the Babson College for the purposes of organizing your residence, accommodation, and logistics in the USA.

Please, note that you may also be required to provide personal identification data relating to you, directly to Babson College for the purposes of securing your transportation in USA, providing accommodation, carrying out organized cultural immersion activities, arranging emergency health insurance, and conducting the training. The College is committed to arrange your participation in the training and your stay in the United States and may provide these data to third parties – partners, service providers and competent authorities for the purposes of authorizing and organizing the participants’ trip and stay in the USA and securing their return to Bulgaria after its completion. If requested, further details on the recipients of your personal data in the US, will be provided by Babson.

Depending on the applicable requirements for entry and stay in the US, you may be required to certify your Covid-19 vaccination status. The Foundation will not collect or otherwise process such information about you in connection with your participation in the Program. It could only be required by the competent US authorities as a condition for entering and residing in the country.

For the purposes of promoting the Program, the Foundation may create photos and/or video materials with your image related to and illustrating your participation in LEAP. Your personal data (names, job title, organization, photos, video) may be disclosed, incl. through audiovisual means on the website of the Foundation (www.us4bg.org), its profiles on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, on the YouTube and Vimeo platforms, as well as to be published in the electronic newsletter of the Foundation for the purpose of illustrating the Program and giving publicity thereto. In addition, participants might be invited to complete a survey or questionnaire providing information about their experience and impressions during the Program, thereby ensuring to get the most out of the training and that it is delivered in a manner that reflects best practice in similar type of exchange programs. The information in the survey may be used to evaluate and prepare a statistical analysis of the results of the Program.

Upon return to Bulgaria participants will be expected to give back to society and contribute to the public good of the country by actively sharing gained knowledge and participating in professional networks and communities supported by the Foundation and its partners, including but not limited to the Association of Bulgarian Leaders and Entrepreneurs (ABLE). In this case, participants might be introduced by ABF to such third parties, as appropriate, and they will process your personal data for its own purposes and by its own means.

Your personal data will be stored by ABF pursuant to our retention policies and schedules, which authorize retention for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or as required by law, whichever is longer. Appropriate retention periods for the different type of data are determined by ABF considering the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the data, as well as the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your data, the purposes for which we process your data as well as the applicable regulatory and legal requirements. For more information on the retention periods of the various categories of data, please refer to the contact details below.

Your rights as a data subject