Georgia undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged by the Atlanta-based Atlantic Institute to participate in an essay contest about the qualities existing in an exceptional world leader of their choice.

The institute is the umbrella organization for the Istanbul Center and the Atlantic Leadership Forum, which was launched last year with the participation of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Students who submit essays are to be invited to the second forum that is to be held on Jan. 29, 2014, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Georgia Capitol where they will meet local civic and business leaders.

The deadline for submissions of the essays, which are not to be more than 1,200 words, is Jan. 13.

Suggested subjects for the essays include Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Fethullah Gülen and Nelson Mandela.

All participating college and university students are to receive a certificate. The writers of the top two winning essays are each to be awarded an all expenses paid trip to Turkey, excluding the roundtrip airfare, during the summer of 2014.

The students will travel to Turkey with local civic and business leaders in a trip organized by the Istanbul Center.

Last year students the Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia Southern University, Valdosta State University, Morehouse College and Southern Polytechnic State University participated in the forum where they met with GBI officials and local state legislators.

The Istanbul Center is a non-governmental, non-partisan organization originally established in Atlanta in 2002 to promote a better understanding and closer relations between diverse individuals and communities in Atlant and the greater Southeast.

For more information, call Romana Sikorova-Besic, administrative assistant, at 404-254-4884 or send her an email to rbesic@istanbulcenter.org.