About the Author: Dr. Rajiv Shah serves as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and Todd Park serves as Assistant to the President and U.S. Chief Technology Officer.

A remarkable new tool is becoming increasingly available to help end extreme poverty and ensure dignity and opportunity for people around the world — a tool that few people think about when they consider how to bolster international development efforts. That tool is data, and in particular “open data” — data freely available in formats that are easy to use in new and innovative ways, while rigorously protecting privacy.

The possibilities are truly endless — it could be regional epidemiological statistics being made available to community health workers; or real-time weather information being made available to small-holder farmers; or loan information being made accessible to first-time borrowers. In these and countless other arenas, open data has the potential to not only improve transparency and coordination,… more »

About the Author: Augusta Babson serves as a Program Officer in the Office of International Visitors in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Mayke Randa was sitting in a conference room in San Francisco earlier this month when her hand shot into the air. She was eager to talk to the representative from Medic Mobile, a tech company in San Francisco that uses mobile technology to improve healthcare in challenging settings. “I use Twitter and Facebook to run five non-governmental organizations in Indonesia, but we haven’t used mobile phones for outreach. Today is a fantastic moment for me to meet the people behind important new social networking tools. I can bring this experience and knowledge back to my organizations and make a real impact.”

Mayke founded of a social movement in Indonesia called “Blood for Life” that uses online tools to connect blood donors and patients in dire need of transfusions. She is one of 25 activists from… more »

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Presents the Small/Medium Enterprise winner of the 2012 ACE Award to Tea Importers, Inc., for Sorwate, Ltd. Rwanda in Washington, D.C. on November 28, 2012. [Go to http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/rm/2012/202347.htm for a full text transcript.]

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presents the 2012 ACE Large Enterprise award to Intel Products, Vietnam, in Washington, D.C. on November 28, 2012. Go to http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/rm/2012/202348.htm for a full text transcript.

About the Author: Rebecca Wainess serves in the Office of the Secretary of State’s Senior Advisor for Innovation.

Three years ago at the Forum for the Future, Secretary Clinton announced the Civil Society 2.0 initiative, in Marrakech, Morocco. The program was created to help grassroots organizations around the world increase their digital literacy to share their stories, build their memberships and connect to their community of peers around the world. Today, the TechCamp program has become the cornerstone of this initiative by providing hands-on training to more than 1,200 organizations from 84 countries to date.

Three years after the launch of the Civil Society 2.0 Initiative, we returned to Morocco to host TechCamp Morocco. Focused on youths and employment, this TechCamp brought together… more »

About the Author: Ambassador Terry Kramer serves as U.S. Head of Delegation, World Conference on International Telecommunications.

As never before in human history, we take for granted the ability to communicate across borders, oceans, and continents. Mobile technology and Internet connectivity are woven into the daily life of most Americans, and have created new avenues for connection, interaction, sharing, and understanding. Meanwhile, the pace of evolution and innovation in mobile and Internet technology ensures an ever-changing, ever-expanding communications landscape.

That landscape extends across the globe, and while not all corners of the world have come to enjoy the full benefits of the Internet age yet, the global expansion of those benefits is gaining speed. The number of Internet users in Africa, for example, is growing by more than 30 percent per year, and mobile broadband services in developing countries grew by nearly 80 percent in 2011 alone.

Consider for just a moment… more »

About the Author: Stephanie Grosser serves as a Program Analyst at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The recent growth of tech start-ups in sub-Saharan Africa is starting to create a buzz.

And what’s not to be excited about? Tech companies created in Africa, by Africans, to address local and global problems have untold potential to change the world. After judging a recent Global Innovations in Science and Technology boot camp in West Africa, venture capitalist Scott Hartley said, “Providing guidance for the top one percent of innovators likely improves the lives of the 99 percent.”

Personal computer usage in Africa is exceptionally low at two percent and Internet penetration is only about 14 percent. However, with indications that tech start-ups, tech… more »

About the Author: Mike Hammer serves as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.

Five years ago tomorrow, the State Department launched DipNote — the first-ever, U.S. Cabinet-level blog. On a day quite similar to this one, with the Public Affairs team fully immersed in the annual gathering of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, my predecessor Sean McCormack pledged that the blog would open a new window into the world of American diplomacy. Much has changed around the globe over the past five years, but one constant has been more and more people are getting their news and information through social media. So, we are committed to using our blog as a means to inform and engage the American people and those around the world.

This commitment is underscored by the fact that more than 1,000 men and women of the State Department and USAID have contributed their stories to the blog — more than 4,700 total entries to date. We owe a debt of… more »

About the Author: Rose E. Gottemoeller serves as Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

Our smaller, faster-paced world is changing the security landscape, and these changes will bring with them new challenges and evolutions in current threats. To respond to these changes, we must adapt instruments of statecraft to bring to bear the networks, technologies and human potential of our increasingly inter-dependent and interconnected world. In this spirit, on August 28, 2012, the Department of State launched the Innovation in Arms Control Challenge asking “How Can the Crowd Support Arms Control Transparency Efforts?”

Through this Challenge, we will collect new ideas about how innovation and technological advancement can affect the implementation of arms control, verification, and nonproliferation treaties and agreements. Can innovation bring about creative ways to prevent “loose nukes” from falling into the hands of terrorists? Can smart phone and tablet… more »

About the Author: Tara D. Sonenshine serves as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

As we advance deeper into the 21st century, emerging countries are seeking to leverage their economic strengths as foundations for political and diplomatic leadership across the world. At the same time, from challenges facing the eurozone to those in the post-Arab Spring regions of the Middle East and North Africa, global markets and economic forces are driving an ever-larger share of our foreign policy realities.

The best way for America to remain central to the world’s diplomatic leadership is to put a premium on advancing our economic statecraft, so that our foreign policy reflects the growing power of economic forces, and contributes to growth abroad and here at home.

As Secretary Clinton has said, our global challenges see no divisions between global economics and international diplomacy. Neither should our solutions. That’s why the Department of State… more »