White House Announces Global Technology and Innovation Fund

Office of the Press Secretary ___________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 23, 2009

During his speech in Cairo on June 4, the President announced that the United States would "launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries." As the latest step in delivering on this commitment, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation announced this week a call for proposals for a Global Technology and Innovation Fund. This fund will help catalyze and facilitate private sector investments that promote access to and growth of technology in OPIC-eligible countries throughout Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. OPIC will provide financing ranging between $25 million and $150 million in total capital for each selected fund.

The Global Technology and Innovation Fund is part of an on-going U.S. government effort to expand partnerships that advance economic opportunity and job creation - including in Muslim-majority countries. Specifically, the sectors of interest for prospective funds may address issues that can have a transformational impact in these regions such as technology, education, telecom, media, business services and financial technology and clean-tech.

More information is available at: http://www.opic.gov/investment-funds/calls-for-proposals/global-technology-innovation-fund/.

http://www.entrepreneurship.gov/summit/
http://www.entrepreneurship.gov/summit/nomination.aspx

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.entrepreneurship.gov/summit/summitoverview.html

Summit Overview

In his June “A New Beginning” speech in Cairo, President Obama announced that the U.S. will host a Summit on Entrepreneurship to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations, and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world. The Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship, which will be held in Washington, DC over two days in the first quarter of 2010, follows through on President Obama’s commitment. It represents an opportunity to highlight and support business and social entrepreneurship in Muslim-majority countries (MMC), including their minority populations, and Muslim communities around the world.

Through this Summit, the United States seeks both to join existing efforts and inspire new efforts to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in Muslim-majority countries and Muslim communities around the world. Delegates will include 150 participants from around the world who will represent their home countries, regions, sectors, and communities at the Summit. Delegates may self nominate or be nominated by others.

Successful entrepreneurs, investors, academics, and leaders of entrepreneurship networks, non-profits, foundations, and businesses who are invested in promoting business or social entrepreneurship in Muslim communities would be excellent delegates and are encouraged to apply.

There will be no preference given to self-nominations or outside nominations. However, letters of support are strongly encouraged to supplement a self-nomination.

The nomination deadline is November 30, 2009.

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-press-secretary-a-new-beginning-presidential-summit-entrepreneurship

Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release March 05, 2010

Statement by the Press Secretary on A New Beginning: Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship

President Obama, together with the Department of State and the Department of Commerce, will host the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., on April 26 and 27. Participants from over 40 countries on 5 continents have been invited to participate. The Summit will highlight the role entrepreneurship can play in addressing common challenges while building partnerships that will lead to greater opportunity abroad and at home.

At his June 4, 2009, speech in Cairo, President Obama announced that the U.S. Government would host a Summit on Entrepreneurship to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations, and entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.

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Previously...

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.america.gov/st/business-english/20009/november/20091125122209esnamfuak0.5765345.html

Topics: Opportunity, Business & Trade, East Asia and the Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, South & Central Asia
Keywords: entrepreneurship, Muslims, Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship
25 November 2009

Entrepreneurs from Muslim World Sought for Washington Summit

The 2010 summit follows up on President Obama’s pledge in Cairo to find ways to deepen ties between the U.S. and the Muslim world.
By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer

Washington — Approximately 150 entrepreneurs from Muslim-majority countries and Muslim communities around the world will be invited to a two-day summit in Washington in spring 2010 to meet with their peers and U.S. officials to explore areas of partnership and ways to drive economic and social innovation.

Deputy Secretary of Commerce Dennis Hightower told reporters at Washington’s Foreign Press Center November 23 that the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship is a “direct follow-up” from President Obama’s June 4 commitment in Cairo to “identify how we can deepen ties between the business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the U.S. and Muslim communities around the world.”

The 150 delegates can be nominated “by businesses, governments, academic institutions, [and] social entrepreneurship institutions” throughout the world’s Muslim communities and Muslim-majority countries. “Or you can self-nominate,” Hightower said. Non-Muslims in Muslim-majority countries are also encouraged to apply.

The Obama administration views the summit as “an unprecedented historical opportunity both to support and highlight the leaders and drivers of economic and social innovation” and to “really craft a new model for a new basis for relationships based on mutual respect and partnership around common challenges,” Hightower said.

The goal is to enhance partnerships that would “link capital, business development, [and] market access,” enabling entrepreneurs to build “high-growth and high-impact ventures,” as well as continue to look at ways to sustain the existing U.S. focus on other types of partnership programs.

Hightower reflected on his career in which he opened businesses in Kuwait, Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru, Istanbul, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and elsewhere in the Middle East region.

The underlying rationale driving his ventures was determined by “what is going to be mutually beneficial” in terms of job creation in those countries along with what would be good for a U.S. company. Both benefits, he said are “equally compelling.”

“The unifying theme of how we are more alike is certainly at the core of why this makes sense now,” Hightower said. At the end of the day, “good business is good business.”

U.S. embassies and consulates in the countries where the delegates will likely be coming from have been told about the summit and will be processing the visas and other paperwork necessary for the 150 participants to come to Washington.

Along with the Department of Commerce and its Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development will be playing key roles in implementing the summit.

There is a broad and diverse platform from which to get “the best possible range of participation,” Hightower said. “You just never know where the next best or good idea is going to come from.”

More information, including a link to a nomination form that can be submitted online, can be found at the summit’s Web site. The deadline for nominations is November 30.

Note: The following text is a quote:

www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/04/president-s-cairo-initiative-celebrates-a-year-progress

President’s “Cairo Initiative” Celebrates a Year of Progress

Posted by Erin Szulman on June 04, 2010 at 12:20 PM EDT
On Tuesday, June 8, OSTP Director John Holdren will provide keynote remarks at an event commemorating President Obama’s June 4, 2009, speech at Cairo University, which called for deepening relations between the West and Muslim communities around the world. In that speech, President Obama described how America’s strength in science and technology could be enlisted to forge partnerships with Muslim communities and help solve many of our shared challenges. He spoke of appointing a team of “science envoys” to collaborate on programs to develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, purify water, and grow new crops. And he spoke of launching a new fund to support technological development in Muslim communities and help transfer ideas to the marketplace to create more jobs.

Tuesday’s event, at the National Academies’ Keck Center in Washington, DC, will celebrate the one-year anniversary of that “Cairo Initiative.” It will recognize the substantial progress that has been made to date, including the creation of new exchange programs and the deployment of America’s first three science envoys, who have in recent months traveled to more than 10 nations, including Egypt, Algeria, and Indonesia and will recount their experiences at the event. It will also highlight new commitments for further engagement and provide an opportunity for the diplomatic, science and technology, and non-governmental organization communities to comment and ask questions about the path ahead.

Among the many notable achievements to date:

An Entrepreneurship Summit led to the creation of support networks encompassing business and social entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, development bankers, and other business experts to promote development in a number of countries.

NASA teamed up with USAID to develop “SERVIR Africa,” a program that monitors and forecasts ecological change and allows participating nations to respond to regional natural disasters. NASA now has 39 agreements with 30 Muslim-majority nations.

USAID awarded six new Middle East Regional Cooperation projects to fund applied research and science and technology cooperation between Israel and Jordan, West Bank/Gaza, and Tunisia, regarding agriculture, global and regional health, and environmental protection.

EPA partnered with the City of Jakarta, Indonesia, to create an air quality management program to develop and apply science-based urban air pollution control strategies, programs, and tools, with the goal of improving air quality and human health.

Among the activities planned for the near future:

The U.S. Department of the Interior will work with the Government of Morocco to promote better management and protection of endangered species by creating a Red List of nationally endangered species. Both agencies will also cooperate to strengthen the implementation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to promote sustainable tourism development.
Three new science envoys will be named by
the State Department with missions in Central Asia, East and West Africa, and Southeast Asia.

The National Science Foundation will promote exchange visits by students to conduct research and take courses in areas such as materials science, biology, chemistry, and energy in Muslim communities. This will also allow greater linkage between NSF-funded science/engineering centers and equivalent facilities in Muslim communities.

Clearly much has been accomplished, and more is poised for fruition in the year ahead. A draft agenda for the meeting can be found here. For those who cannot attend, a live audio-cast will be available at www.whitehouse.gov/ostp.

Erin Szulman is a student volunteer at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

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