Tag Archives: entrepreneurs

More Pakistan Aid, DRC Violence, Two Cool U.S. Programs for Youth

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Another $50 million in U.S. aid to Pakistan and a “horrific attack” in the DRC. What the U.S. is doing to preserve European heritage. Also, a report on jobless Americans becoming their own bosses. Read about young people who come to the United States for cool experiences, like IT internships and space camp .

More Aid for Pakistan
The United States is providing an additional $50 million to help Pakistan cope with monsoon flooding, says the U.S. Agency for International Development. The new funds are being diverted from a five-year, $7.5 billion development program to help Pakistan that was announced by President Obama last year.  The United States has already committed $150 million to Pakistan flood relief.

 

Clinton Condemns ‘Horrific Attack’ in DRC
Responding to reports of mass rapes of women and children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged that the United States will do everything it can to work with the United Nations and DRC officials to hold the perpetrators responsible and create a safe environment for all civilians living in eastern Congo. “This horrific attack is yet another example of how sexual violence undermines efforts to achieve and maintain stability in areas torn by conflict but striving for peace,” Clinton said. 

Saving Cultural Heritage in Europe
Landmarks in a dozen European nations in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Turkey and elsewhere will receive support from the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation. They are among 63 projects worldwide chosen for funding in 2010.

Laid-Off Workers Try Entrepreneurship
Some of the millions of Americans who lost their jobs in the past three years have decided to go out on their own.  Last year, business start-ups in the United States reached their highest level in 14 years, and in the first half of 2010, more than one-fourth of newly unemployed workers considered starting their own businesses.

Iraqis Intern at U.S. Computer Companies
Eight young Iraqi information technology specialists spent 12 weeks this summer at leading American technology firms learning about U.S. business practices, new technologies and entrepreneurial skills. They interned at the companies through the auspices of the U.S. Embassy Baghdad IT Intern Exchange program. 

Libyans at Space Camp
This July, two dozen students from Libya attended Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  They joined other young people from around the world to participate in simulated space shuttle missions, training and lectures on space exploration.  Then in August, a group of Moroccan students had their chance at Space Camp. Last year, the experiences of 24 Libyan Space Camp participants were documented and made into the film One Small Step, One Giant Leap. The film premiered in December 2009, airing more than 20 times on local television in Libya.

Back to Basics for Entrepreneurs in Bahrain

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Raman Jaggi is one of many delegates coming to the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship April 26-27, from countries with sizeable Muslim populations. As head of business development for Bahrain Development Bank, Jaggi promotes entrepreneurship in the Kingdom of Bahrain. His program has grown from helping 50 entrepreneurs per year a decade ago to nearly 1,400 in 2009.

Dane Stangler is a senior analyst at the Kauffman Foundation, one of the largest charitable foundations in the United States. One of the foundation’s primary missions is to promote entrepreneurship.

Raman Jaggi

Raman Jaggi

Raman Jaggi:
We at the bank created a unique package of support services to promote entrepreneurship and SME development in Bahrain. The package approach entails nurturing the potential of entrepreneurs; helping them select viable business opportunities, develop business plans and link with appropriate finance schemes; and facilitating business implementation through incubation support.

We’ve seen tremendous upsurge in entrepreneurial activity in the recent years that resulted in bigger demand for bank’s services.

It needed a pool of resources to handle the demand from society. We built up human capacity in the bank so that we have more hands and more counselors. Together the bank expanded its outreach through a network of branches established at different locations in the country and introduced more products and services in line with the felt needs of entrepreneurs.

Bahrain maintains high standards in human resource development and education. The issue was bringing up the awareness of entrepreneurship, encouraging and hand holding the budding entrepreneurs. We successfully did that working in close cooperation with other development entities.

We guide new entrepreneurs in matching their ideas to what they are capable of doing. Entrepreneurs sometimes get into something that doesn’t fit their capabilities. Also, small business entrepreneurs at times lack particular attention toward the basic management of finance, accounting. They’re overly engaged in marketing and producing more to increase their sales. This leads to imbalance in overall management of the business enterprise and creates hurdles to growth.

As an entrepreneur counselor, I am committed to the cause of entrepreneurship development and supporting the entrepreneurial efforts of Bahraini entrepreneurs thereby contributing meaningfully to the development of Bahrain.

Dane Strangler

Dane Stangler

Dane Stangler:
While so much discussion around entrepreneurship gets lost in a narrow focus on high technology, you bring us back to two elements, seemingly mundane, that are absolutely essential to business formation.

The first is basic awareness: We often find that talented and driven individuals with promising ideas have not considered entrepreneurship as an option for them. This may be due to a lack of exposure, whether in the educational system or in broader discussions of economic activity. Or, in some cases, it may be due to institutional biases (for example, at some universities) against starting a business. Whatever the reason, progress can be made by promoting the importance (and accessibility) of entrepreneurship.

The second element you highlight is the importance of basic financial literacy — it is amazing that in high-flying discussions about heroic entrepreneurs and cutting-edge innovation, we lose sight of how crucial basic finance is for running and growing a business. A new firm can possess the best idea in the world, but if it cannot manage to remain cash-flow positive, it might not matter. The actual operation of the company is just as important as the ideas that inspire it.

But Bahrain’s success reflects what the Kauffman Foundation’s research and experience have told us for years: The essentials for any nation seeking to spur and sustain entrepreneurship must include an entire ecosystem of networks, education, policies and innovations that support rather than hinder the operation of firms at the startup stage as well as those seeking to grow and expand.

Fusion that Works

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Imran Qidwai is the president of Zaviah, a high-tech consultancy firm, and a managing partner at Totten Energy Services, an energy company, both in Boston.

Experts and entrepreneurs from around the world discuss what governments can do to promote high-tech entrepreneurship and what the shape of technology entrepreneurship will be in the future.

What do you do when you want $1 billion in investment to come your way? You prepare to grab it. That’s what New England Clean Energy Council(NECEC) is trying to do.

Launched in 2007, it aims to accelerate New England’s clean energy economy by building a community of stakeholders and a world-class cluster of clean-tech companies. If the council members – clean energy firms, venture capital funds, major financial institutions, local universities, large commercial end-users and others – set up an effective system of education, training as well as technology development and technology adoption, the region may get $1 billion in clean-tech investment by 2012, according to a 2008 report from several consultancies.

This system already has taken shape to a large degree. NECEC has worked with the Massachusetts legislature to design the framework for a clean energy seed grant program and a green jobs initiative.

Recognizing that successful new businesses are created by repeat entrepreneurs and experienced executives, NECEC launched the Clean Energy Fellowship Program, an intensive, 3-month educational “boot camp” focused on transitioning entrepreneurs and corporate officers from other tech industries into the clean energy sector. This was in response to a key finding of the report that insufficient entrepreneurial talent was the biggest obstacle to clean-tech innovation in the region. The first group of 12 fellows graduated from the program in 2008.

Some of the 25 “graduates” of 2009 banded together to launch the Clean Energy Fusion Center in Waltham, in the heart of Boston’s famed Rt. 128 high-tech cluster. This so-called “syncubator,” a business incubator designed to develop synergies between startups from related sectors, has become home to some early-stage clean-tech companies. As part of the center, I and Paul Sereiko have started an energy services company to provide commercial, industrial, institutional and municipal building owners and long-term tenants a one-stop shop for renewable energy projects. We take them from selecting appropriate technology to financial engineering, using all available federal and state incentives and finding financing. Another venture — Seven Solar — launched by the program’s fellows has already graduated out of the center into a building where it plans to set up pilot manufacturing.

NECEC must be doing something right as in February it was ranked the second best clean-tech cluster worldwide by Sustainable World Capital, a firm that connects institutional investors with ecologically sustainable companies. I hope this means we are getting closer to the $1 billion pot.

A New Landscape Challenges Science Parks

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Guest blogger Ilkka Kakko is the managing director of Karostech, a Finnish firm that designs and implements worldwide a new concept of collaborative innovation environment.

Experts and entrepreneurs from around the world discuss what governments can do to promote high-tech entrepreneurship and what the shape of technology entrepreneurship will be in the future.

Being a pioneer deep in my heart and entrepreneur in my soul, I love to discover emerging signals and follow them to see their potential to make a large-scale impact in the business world and society. Currently, I am excited about future changes in the global innovation landscape.

The near future of innovation environments and supportive organizations is suggested by the increasing power of individuals and collaborative networked organisations (CNOs) to enhance creativity and support action to innovate. [CNOs are digital networks used to search for information and to share knowledge between peers to solve problems and create services and products.] The complexity of traditional organizational structures and increased market requirements for flexibility call for better usage of resources and connectivity to global competence pools.

This will set a new stage for regional and national business development organizations in general, and science and technology parks in particular. Instead of focusing on local resources and established groups, these organizations should really test those resources and groups’ attractiveness in the global arena. The key players in a new innovation landscape are truly nomadic and well inter-connected: they work and live in a world powered and inspired by CNOs. More and more vital innovation activities happen outside science parks as their traditional model is not fulfilling the needs of “freelance” entrepreneurs.

So a new approach is needed. It calls for a third generation of science parks. Main elements of the new approach include a network oasis, [a collaborative environment designed to inspire spontaneous and guided interactions of individuals and groups] a hybrid of different elements such as social media and professional virtual communities. In a network oasis, the digital platforms, which enable community building, are embedded in the physical environment in a similar way as GLOW screens in the Global Oasis Network site in Joensuu Science Park in Finland. [GLOW is a blend of real and virtual worlds designed to expand possibilities for communication, knowledge storage and exchange of ideas.] Such an environment encourages diversity at all levels and surely respects serendipity. In fact a new management paradigm – serendipity management [facilitation of talent aimed at finding unexpected, emergent and tacit competencies] – is emerging.

To be competitive nowadays, a science park has to attract nomadic talent and at the same time be able to create sustainable professional communities and “sticky knowledge” [locally produced knowledge that circulates and diffuses easily within its community, but is not easily transferrable outside.]

What the World Needs Now Is Innovation, More Innovation

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Guest blogger Joachim von Heimburg is one of the leading practitioners of “open innovation,” with 30 years of experience in R&D and product development at Procter and Gamble. Since 2009 he has worked as an independent innovation guide.

Experts and entrepreneurs from around the world discuss what governments can do to promote high-tech entrepreneurship and what the shape of technology entrepreneurship will be in the future.


Climate change. Secure energy and water supply. Food production for the growing world population. These all pose challenges that require many innovations of a global scope. But is the world innovating globally?

Political leaders love innovation and want more of it. But do they support innovating outside their home turf?

It all starts with an entrepreneur identifying an opportunity to create value. Intellectual property rights define ownership of this value. The bigger the market, the more value is created, so more innovations will emerge in bigger markets.

Action required: Standardize and better enforce intellectual property rights across countries, creating bigger markets for innovations.

Innovations require balancing many forces. Some of them are within the control of the entrepreneur — like product performance. Some of them require trade-offs between the benefits of innovation and the risks to society. Think of cars. Although they kill thousands every year, many people drive to work every morning. But not all countries see risks in the same way. Compare the risk-benefit assessment of nuclear power in France vs. Germany.

Action required: Shape discussions assessing benefits vs. risks with the objective of bringing more innovations to the market.

In the political world, the whole world, innovation is often an orphan. Rarely can politicians show ownership for innovation on a global level in the way they can feel responsible for national research. Policies across borders often focus on risk reduction and thus favor the status quo. But innovation must venture into uncharted territory. Politicians – are you reading this? – you must accept a leadership role to help the world become more innovative. Yes, you can!