On May 20th, ISSA Member Step by Step Centre for Education and Professional Development,(CEDP) Bucharest, Romania hosted a powerfully successful one-day conference: "Public-private partnerships for early education, a chance for Romania's competitiveness". By drawing together over 100 representatives from the business sector, politics, NGOs and the media, this ISSA member helped showcase the importance of early education, and succeeded in increasing the number of supporters for Early Childhood Development in the countr.y. Drawing on the support of UNICEF Romania, Ministry of Education and Scientific Research Romania, ReadyNation, ISSA and Open Society Foundations, CEDP organized discussions which covered actionable steps business leaders can take in their own communities and companies to impact early childhood development. According to Carmen Lica, Executive Director CEDP, "The next steps and challenges are to capitalize on their [the business communities] interest and encourage their involvement in ECEC" Adrian Curaj, Minister of Education in Romania said "It is important that we succeed in creating a critical mass to provide both innovative solutions to support education policies, and resources aimed at early education. I'm glad that we were able today to put on the public agenda, the conference, a topic that was not discussed in recent years and which requires dialogue, adequate policies and impact." This image taken during the conference by Unicef ​​Romania.