Startup America: Google, Facebook Among Companies to Lead White House Entrepreneurship Initiative
Less than a week after announcing a commitment to entrepreneurship during the State of the Union address, the Obama administration announced Startup America, a national campaign to help create jobs and industries of the future. Yesterday morning, President Obama stood with several economic advisors and a number of America’s top business leaders to announce the program.
The program will be chaired by Steve Case, co-founder of AOL. Case will be joined on the board by Carl J. Schramm, CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, a group known for fostering entrepreneurs and innovation for nearly 50 years.
As part of the initiative, Google will be sponsoring two efforts in the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), a non-profit group that provides entrepreneurship education for at-risk high school students from low-income communities.
The first is called The Flat Classroom Exchange. It will allow local educators to team-teach the NFTE program in real-time.
The second, the Makers Class, will integrate the NFTE curriculum with invention and engineering lessons.
Facebook will being a series of 12 to 15 events around the country called Startup Days. These events, featuring guest speakers from Facebook, investment community professionals and entrepreneurs, will train people in new technologies and offer networking opportunities with other entrepreneur teams and venture capitalists.
As part of this initiative, Intel, HP and IBM are also investing over $350 Million in U.S. companies and new businesses.