 Hello, and welcome to today's Global Innovation through Science and Technology, or GIST, Tech Connect Global Conversation on Building the Innovation Ecosystem through Science and Technology Policy. I'm pleased to welcome our viewers from around the world to engage in a discussion with our knowledgeable panel who are here to answer some of your questions about how science and technology policies can impact entrepreneurs. They will also share their lessons learned from both successful and failed science and technology policies and discuss how entrepreneurs can help to influence future policies. I'm Marco Bravo from the University of Texas at Austin's IC Squared Institute, where we work to advance the theory and practice of entrepreneurial wealth creation by linking innovation, creativity and capital. We are a proud partner of the State Department-led GIST Initiative. The GIST Initiative empowers young innovators through networking, skills building and mentoring and access to financing through its various programs. Today, we are delighted to host a live web set connecting you with other entrepreneurs and innovators across geographies and continents. Since its inception, Tech Connects have reached tens of thousands of viewers from around the world for more than 75 countries around the globe and discussed topics important to science and technology entrepreneurs. We look forward to a continued partnership between the State Department, IC Squared and our many GIST partners. You can learn more about our programs and partners at our website, gistnetwork.org. Please use the hashtag GIST Tech Connect when tweeting about the event today. We're collecting your questions to our panelists, so please start sending us questions now and throughout the program by typing in the chat space beside the video. I would like to thank those of you hosting viewing parties and encourage you to submit your questions early. I would now like to introduce you to our panel of experts. With us today, we have Dr. Nita LaSalle, a program director at the National Science Foundation's division for computer network systems, where she helped to create and manage NSF's highly successful Innovation Corp or ICORP programs, a set of programs that fund the translation of technologies from the academic lab to the marketplace. We apologize that we had a last minute change in our panel. Unfortunately, panelist Mohamed Malouche could not join us today, but we are pleased to welcome his colleague, Mr. Furious Banashur, who is a founding member and the current president of the Tunisian American Young Professionals, a diaspora organization that focuses on fostering economic and financial relationships between the United States and Tunisia to encourage and increase the flow of private and public investment between the two countries. Mr. Banashur is seasoned technology entrepreneur and executive within 25 years of experience in working with innovative technology and healthcare startups. Finally, via Skype, we have Christina Fernandez, director for policy and research at the Global Entrepreneurship Network, JAN, where she focuses on integrating policymakers into startup ecosystems through JAN's initiatives across the world. As we wait for your questions to come in, I'd like to start off by asking each of our speakers a question. Anita, let's start with you. What are some examples of policies that help support entrepreneurship? Well, clearly from the National Science Foundation and for those folks who are viewing, who are outside the U.S., I should explain that the National Science Foundation is the research funding agency in the U.S. And we have a budget of about $7 billion a year to fund researchers. And at any point in time, we have about 50,000 researchers who we're supporting. So, in 2011, we started up this program that called ICOR that focuses on entrepreneurship for two main reasons. One is we wanted to leverage the investment that we're making in these researchers and their intellectual property. And the other reason is that if you look at data in the U.S. for the last 30 years, the level of entrepreneurship in absolute numbers and a percentage of the population, the number of startups has been declining over the past 30 years. So, at NSF, we said, okay, how can we help that problem? And at the same time, leverage the intellectual property from those folks, the researchers who are funding. So, we started up a program called the Innovation Core and it's pretty simplistic. It's based on some research that was done at Stanford University with Steve Blank where they created the Lean Startup methodology. And so, what we do is we invite our researchers to apply for ICOR funding for entrepreneurship and they get $50,000 if they're accepted. And what we do is this is not for research. This is to immerse them in a curriculum that teaches them about the Lean Startup and how to do customer discovery. And so far, since 2011, we've put 500 teams and that's more than 1,500 people through the curriculum and those 500 teams have actually started more than 250 companies. So, something about the experience is actually working. And over time over the last two years, it's been so successful that we've actually extended it and done some other things with universities. But it's not the only federal program that funds entrepreneurship. You'll find similar things through state, through agriculture, Department of Defense, Department of Energy and so forth. But this is one that works very, very quickly and has had a very high success rate. Furis, in your opinion, what types of public policies impact entrepreneurs, both the obvious and the more indirect? Sure. Well, first of all, I want to thank you for having me here. I want to say good morning to our viewers in the U.S. and good afternoon for our viewers overseas. The simplest way, and I'm going to approach this from an entrepreneurial perspective as an entrepreneur, public policy is the infrastructure of any entrepreneurial ecosystem. So, the more advanced, the better thought off, the better flow of entrepreneurship and an ecosystem. So, some of the policies that I think is very important, number one is definitely the financial system. How you structure the system so it is open, it is flexible, it can help investors and entrepreneurs have access to multiple vehicles for investing and supporting the startups financially, so that's very critical. Also, on the other end, the ability not only to fund but in case the startup or the company fails, you need to be able to exit and have good laws to exit such a company from the system. Bankruptcy laws are very important. The other public policy is how does the public educational system interact with what the market needs? How do we structure the research in a way that helps innovation and helps the education system support what the market needs? So, that's pretty critical. I think the other side of it also the judicial system. How do I protect the innovation that my entrepreneurs are coming up with? So, IP laws, copyright laws, these need to be flexible, straightforward, but also stringent. So, I feel comfortable not only in protecting my entrepreneurs, but also in protecting my investors who are putting their money and funding to launch these companies. And then, supporting research, like I said, beginning at the earliest possible. So, you see now a lot of focus on teaching entrepreneurship in grade school, in middle school, in high school. So, you create that kind of culture of we want to solve problems and we want to identify problems and we want to create business around these problems. So, that's what I think is important. Thank you. Christina, let me turn to you. Will the same, do you think in your perspective that the same policies that we have in here today work everywhere in the globe? Hi, yes. Thank you for having me and thank you. And I would like to say hi to the audience around the world and tell them that we welcome your questions. I work for global entrepreneurship, the global entrepreneurship network. It's a network that is present in more than 150 countries. And to your question, yes, there are a lot of lessons that we can draw from around the world. And there are some that can be applied, but some that need to be adapted. But in general, what we see is that entrepreneurs have the same needs as other big corporations or established companies. But they have to comply with the judicial system tax regulations with significantly fewer resources. So, it's important to keep that in mind. Oh, well, thank you panelists for these interesting insights to start off the conversation. So, my next question is, and probably I will address it to you first, is what roles should the public versus the private sector play in influencing the advancing effective science policies? That's a tough one. So, I'm going to draw for some support from you, Anita, as well. But I think I go back, you know, my background is an engineer, and I always say I'm a failed engineer because I went into business. But really what I think works most is how do I, from a public policy perspective, understand and work with the market leaders and the thought leaders for the marketplace to forecast what the market, what the industry needs, and then put the scientific policies that affects research, that affects funding for research in place. So, there is, we eliminate the possibility of missing the boat when it comes to that. So, the ability to have the researchers, public policies, and the educational system come together to satisfy what we think the market is going to require in the coming 10, 15, 20 years. So, we're not lagging behind. That is a large role that the research community and the public policy can play, I believe. There are some intangibles, too, and how you would translate into policy, I'm not sure. One of the things we hear when we try to translate the Innovation Core Program offshore is that there are cultures that are risk-averse and are not tolerant to failure. And yet, if those of you who are interested and want to find out more about the lean startup, one of the things that actually encourages is if you're going to fail early failure and you have to be willing to admit that you're going to fail, which is a good thing because you're not going to spend years and human resources and investment in a startup that isn't going to survive. But then some other intangibles, as far as setting policy or concern, has to do with the private sector who have interest in certain policies. So in the U.S., for example, there are professional societies like the AAAS and others who actually are lobbyist groups who will impact policy. So they have to be considered, too. But then the third one is your investor cohort really does impact policy by how they invest. So they're voting with their feet and their dollars. And actually, for example, in the U.S., right now, one of the biggest investments is in healthcare for the aging and biotechnology. So in essence, that ends up becoming a national policy because of the investment source. Appreciate it. So next, we have a question from Abul from Kuwait. And the question is, what is the best way to make people engaged in the law making? And I would address this probably to Christina. Can you share your thoughts about this, please? Yes. And this relates back to the earlier question of what the roles of the private versus the public sector is and policymaking. And really, the best results have come from where the public sector consults or partners with the private sector so that you can formulate effective and effective policy that responds to the needs of the market. So making your voice heard by the government in terms of the needs, the roadblocks and the weight of your entrepreneurial path is very important. And I encourage entrepreneurs to participate in committees and fora where government calls for opinions from actual entrepreneurs. Thank you. I think I'm going to piggyback a little bit. I'm going to address you in the next question, Firas, which I think as an entrepreneur, I think it would be very, very simple to answer. Is how do you think entrepreneurs can best communicate their needs to policymakers? Yeah. You know, the first thing you want to look at, policymakers don't and will not know what you need until you talk to them about your needs. So that's the number one is to communicate. And there is something to be said in communicating as a group and communicating in an effective manner. So number one, I will create associations for entrepreneurs, right? So maybe there's a technology entrepreneurial association. There is a healthcare entrepreneurial association. We regularly invite policymakers to come in and understand your market. Understand what challenges you're trying to solve for the society and the community you live in. And if what you're solving also meets the objectives of that lawmaking group, there's a common goal. So think of it and approach it as an entrepreneur as well. You're solving a market issue that you need to approach solving the challenges you have from a legal perspective, from a financial system perspective, approach it entrepreneurially. You're not going to push a button and solve it. You have a trial and error. You need to communicate. It's the same approach. So form a group because you are able to communicate better and then invite policymakers to be part of that group. Working sessions, dinners. And that's how you create a public sector, a private sector communication that at the end of the day it's going to give its fruits and it helps you pave the road to a more successful entrepreneurial ecosystem. Thanks. Kristina, can you build on this as well? Because I know that you work a lot in putting together policymakers and entrepreneurs. So in your perspective, from what you have seen in your experience, how do you think entrepreneurs best communicate their thoughts to policymakers? How can we leverage that breach? Yes. So don't just involve policymakers when you think that you need something at a law or a regulation to be changed. Invite them to participate in your celebrations. When you give an award, when you want to celebrate, rockstar entrepreneur in your community, invite them. And increasingly in more and more countries across the development spectrum, there are entrepreneurs now working inside government trying to influence policy and bringing their experience from the entrepreneurial sector. So that's a path some of you might be willing to take. But make sure you find that person, that startup savvy policymaker inside the government and try to communicate your needs through that person as well as a group. As my colleague, my co-panelist mentioned. So involving them in the entrepreneurial community is very important at all stages. When you celebrate, when you have issues, you want to push. So throughout the entrepreneurial spectrum and your entrepreneurial path, be sure you know that they are part of the ecosystem as well. Yeah. I mean, if I may piggyback quickly on this. So this is a great idea. So for example, we are type, the Tunisian-American young professionals. We've got four pillars that we work on, education, entrepreneurship, export, and exchanges. And part of the entrepreneurial work that we do is we work with entrepreneurs back in Tunisia. And the whole idea is to raise the profile, bring in best practices that we've learned in the U.S. and then try to instill that. And then we invite not only policymakers but also successful entrepreneurs who've made it. So raise the profile. It's, again, it's entrepreneurial. Do some marketing. And that helps create the presence and create the awareness of what you do. And that's important because it's who screams the loudest. So if you show value, if you show success, I think things will start moving in the right direction for you as an entrepreneur. If I could also add to that, because both Christina and Faraz talked about celebrating. I mean, technologists are lousy communicators for the most part. And they tend to over-intellectualize their concepts. And you really end up having to learn how to communicate to celebrate these projects and their outcomes. And it shouldn't be about me, me, me and my needs. It's what is your innovation going to do for your society and make the case that way. Thank you. So next, I would like to pose a little bit of a rough question. And so feel free to jump in on this, which is I'd like to ask you, in your opinion, what constitutes an entrepreneurial ecosystem? Yeah. That's a hard one. Wow, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Context dependent. Yeah, so let me start to tackle this quickly. So an ecosystem obviously needs a lot of components to nurture it. So it doesn't exist all of a sudden. So it's a well-oiled machine that requires, number one, an entrepreneur. You need entrepreneurs. You need people who have this ability or innate desire to go and solve problems. And you teach that through the school. So you need entrepreneurs. You need a vibrant educational system that educate the entrepreneurs and instill that desire, that curiosity, that need to go and do something. Then you need a vibrant, I would say, public-private partnership. You move then to a healthy financial system that is flexible, that has the capital to fund some of these startups. Then you need the ability to access markets, the ability to go and sell and market your innovations. So it's a combination of all of them. And I always like to bring back and give the example of the Silicon Valley. It took almost, what is it now? 70 years from when it first started. And it started with few trailblazers who used some of the funding from the government being able to put together the HPs and then Apple and Microsoft. But it took time to reach what it is today, one of the most vibrant ecosystems. It is self-contained. It is an absolutely well-oiled machine. I mean, everything, for every stage of a startup, there is the support. There are the mentors. There are the advisors. There are the funders. And then you graduate. You go from a pre-revenue to post-revenue, too. And that takes time, but also takes the entrepreneurs to push that ecosystem into existence and ask for it. The same way as an entrepreneur, you go on your market and you want to sell your product to your end customers. You need to go and fight for what you need as an entrepreneur within your ecosystem. So you've got to engage universities. You've got to engage those universities to teach the entrepreneurs or to teach the engineers or the marketeers that you need for your company. You need to go and lobby the local government officials to help you with the law. So it takes time. It's not impossible. But that's what an ecosystem is. It's a combination of multiple components working very well together. So that's the best I can... Yeah, and I think also on a local level, you want to make sure there's a flexible labor market that can afford to move from job to job as the dynamics of these startups occur. And the single most important point he makes is time. This is not going to happen if you change your systems. It's not going to happen in three years or five years or even 10 years. Because you also have to have... Not only do you need a labor market, you need a market for what the entrepreneur technology is. You need investors. You need investors who can accommodate the risk of a startup, a technology startup, and a regulatory framework that's conducive to these kinds of activities. So yeah, what I'm hearing, and I'm going to turn the question to you, Christina, but what I'm hearing is, the reason it's with my experience of working in policy, science and technology policy in Portugal, is that there are many ecosystems or examples of ecosystems around the world. I mean, Silicon Valley, Austin, it has this Austin Technopolis, you have New York coming, you have London, Berlin. I mean, you have a lot of influence. It really does not make sense for us to talk about adapting, about using a model of those cities and just replicate it in different places around the world. That doesn't work because there are cultural aspects involved, et cetera. So, Christina, from your perspective, what do you think about this, about how do you learn from those ecosystems and adapt those ecosystems to work in different regions around the world? Yes, so it's important within ecosystems, not just to know which are the actors, as Dr. LaSalle and Frias mentioned, labor markets, culture, the education system, but it's important to know the connections between them. So, when you want to tackle a problem in an ecosystem, you can't just copy what another nation or policymaker did in another country. You have to see where the weakness is in your specific ecosystem. It might be your education system. So, you want to take into consideration, as well, short-term and long-term goals. An ecosystem you're looking, as an example, made of already had an institutional framework that allowed for a specific policy to be implemented, such as a tax policy, for example. So, again, hearing from the actual entrepreneurs about where the gaps are is very important. Your gaps might not be the same as other ecosystems' gaps. The connections, the connectivities between the ecosystem components might be differently structured in your own ecosystem. Thank you so much. So, since we're talking about entrepreneurial ecosystems, my next question is, how do you measure the health of a determined entrepreneurial ecosystem? How do you determine that? That is such a case. So, researchers have been looking at this for years, 50, 60 years. And actually, the timing is good to mention that the Kaufman Foundation just issued a report within the last two or three months about how do you measure the health of an ecosystem. So, that's just one point on the curve. The difficulty is every culture, even within a state, is different. And some people look at what the density of companies are to the population. They look at how fluid the labor market is. So, I guess the point to make is we really don't know the answer to that question. And the danger to not knowing the answer to that question is reliable to do what you suggested, which is copy Silicon Valley or copy Berlin. And that's not necessarily going to work, but you might not find out it doesn't work for 10 or 15 years. So, it really is an open question. I'd love to hear you take that. Yeah, I mean, there is the scientific approach, and I'm not qualified to go after that because it requires all the data that you guys work on. But from an entrepreneurial perspective, and I look at all the ecosystems, and I fully agree you don't want to copy, but you want to learn, right? There's a big difference between the two. You learn and you apply to your specific environment. But if I look at the successful ones, I mean, you could say, okay, how many companies have been funded? How many exits have been there? How much innovation is coming out of that ecosystem? And that gives you an intuition of how well that ecosystem is working together. That's one indication. Now, it's not scientific, but it quickly gives me an idea if they have been successful. And that leads, again, back to some centers around the world where things came together over time, and now you've got a productive ecosystem, right? The trees have grown, and now they're bearing fruits, and now you've got... So that's how I look at it, you know? And it's not scientific, but at least it's just... Your experience. Yeah, it's how you value a company. I mean, there are tons and tons of paper, but at the end of the day, before funding, this is what happens. It's intuitions. Christina, do you want to jump in on this? Yes, I just related to the measure of density. How many new and young firms do you have? How do you measure that? In general, there's as much art as science to build an ecosystem, but there are some proxies or indicators that can help you with that. I think it's important that you define the number of new and young companies that are employed... How many of those new and young... How many people those new and young companies employ in a geographic area? It's also important to look at whether your ecosystem is diverse, not just in terms of the economic area in which the entrepreneurs that are working, but also in terms of the diversity of ideas and talent that's coming in and out. So there are some proxies that you can use, but again, how you measure that will depend on what your objectives are in the ecosystem. All right, so that leads me to... So my conclusion on this is that policymakers, when they are working on building innovation ecosystems, they need metrics. They need to measure the result of that policy. And what you said, Anita, is those are long-term metrics. I mean, you cannot... There is a long time span. So that leads me to my next question, which is maybe for you, Firas, is if you can describe how the benefits and disadvantages of public policy are determined in regards to building these ecosystems. Wow, yeah, yeah. The best public policy is the public policy that creates a lot of success without you feeling the public policy. So it's not overbearing. It is, but it's very supportive. It works in the background. So for example, a well-diverse, well-supported educational system that relies on the latest in delivering value, that's pretty important because it's going to help you with the labor that you need to expand. So the way I would determine... I mean, again, it's the same thing. I'm not a scientist that focuses on how would I look at the indicator of a successful public policy, but I think if you look at any ecosystem or a region where you see innovation coming out, where you see higher employment rate, investors actually are eyeing that region and they want to go in there and they want to fund, something is working. And that something has to have a component of a public policy that have been put and have been considered nicely and well-designed and well-thought-of to support that kind of a vibrant ecosystem. Nina, do you have a compliment? Yeah, because both for us and Christina mentioned transparency and connectivity. If you're engaged in a start-up, it's not a set of discrete experiences. It's a continuum from the point of start-up to hiring and whatever. And so the connectivity between the regulatory issues has to be transparent to the people who are trying to start-up. So whether it's tax structure or investment structures, employment structures, regulatory issues, there shouldn't be surprises. So as a naive start-up, I should be able to flow through those activities without having to hire a whole cadre of experts in those different areas. And so it should be lean. I mean, that's one of the main things. You don't want these start-ups and investors to be engaged in the bureaucracy and that's typically in any country, not just the U.S. That's typically the complaint that people have about trying to do a start-up is that they're faced with a series of bureaucratic issues. It may or may not be the reason they succeed or fail, but that is what they'll claim is the reason that they succeed or fail. Thank you. I just want to add something, Marco, if I may. There's an increasing trend in policymaking for entrepreneurship that you experiment with policies. Just because what you mentioned, that you can only see results in the long-term. So it's allowing policies or programs to remain lean and nimble, to be able to adjust as you monitor results. And in order to do that monitor, you have to establish criteria from the onset of how are you going to determine whether it's working or not. Yeah, yeah. Great. Thanks. That's a good point. So next we have a question from the car which asks, which do you think is easier to help with public policies, innovation, or basic research? That's a good one. Maybe I'll start by you. Yeah. Probably innovation. The problem is that basic research is not necessarily mission-oriented, at least from the perspective of the funding agency that I work with. And so you can't say, well, how many jobs will this research result in? Will it cure a disease, whatever? And so that takes a lot of faith. And we've been very good at that, at the NSF for 60 years. With innovation, we're better positioned because our successes are so public and so easy to describe because they're very applied. And so it's not an either-or, it's a balance between the two. Making wise decisions in pure research funding. And there has been research, for example, in mathematics that didn't come to fruition for like 50 years when computers came around. So you can't predict what will happen when you invest in pure research. So you need a healthy ecosystem of both. Yeah, I do agree. And you, I think you also need to look at what happens in the middle between basic research and commercialization of innovation is you've got to keep that pipeline flowing. So there's no point in just investing in research and that staying in papers or in university labs. It's making sure you have your training people to find commercial value and the research and moving the knowledge across that pipeline. Yes, I do agree the importance of basic research to create new knowledge, disruptive knowledge and innovation to kind of piggyback on that. And you need to have the ability to commercialize it, right? So the researchers, they do a great job creating the future ideas or the future problem solving but someone needs to come in and be able to commercialize and create the businesses and create the wealth and employment out of that research. Absolutely. So now we have a question out of Mexico asking how can policies help entrepreneurs to be less risk adverse? And I think this is a great question and maybe since you're an entrepreneur I would start by you Christina to have the international flavor. So please. I don't know if policies can help you be less risk adverse. Policies can help you better predict, right? Predict the path or the growth of your company. You could have the best policies in place but the risk would be very high for you, right? So I think what you as an entrepreneur there is an inherent risk because you're going into a path that no one else had done before. So there is risk of the unknown. The risk of failure comes maybe from execution that has nothing to do with policies. How you run your business. The risk could come from lack of funding which has nothing to do with policy. So I'm not... I don't think there's something within the policy creation that will make an entrepreneur less risk adverse. I think policies would, like I said, will create the visibility for you as an entrepreneur that if I'm going to go through this path I know there's no bus coming this way to hit me because I know I can predict which way I need to go to a certain degree then I need to execute, need to work on my business plan, need to sell, need to commercialize. And maybe that's what policies could give you. There are different infrastructures to succeed but the risks are everywhere. So in reality what we're talking about here is that risk adversity is a cultural issue. It's not a policy issue, right? I agree. And so, Cristina, with your experience in different geographies so how do you think this risk adversity issue plays and what role does it play in developing these innovation ecosystems around the globe? I agree. It's a mindset issue but I think there are policy tools you can use to eliminate unnecessary risk in the environment. For example, in some countries bankruptcy failure leads you to jail it's true. So, bankruptcy regulations are extremely important to diminish the risk. It won't make you less risk averse in your mindset in general because the risk that you will have to face in case you fail, which is very likely. There are other policies that are less obvious. For example, when health insurance is tied to employment you will think twice between leaving your family without health insurance because you want to take the entrepreneurial plunge because your current employer be it government or big corporation provides you with your health insurance. So, as an entrepreneur you will appreciate having the ability of buying health insurance at a reasonable price outside in markets that won't depend on having stable employment. In general to help with the mindset issue, I think education is very important. I think it's important that education, that entrepreneurship is taught not just for the people that are going to be already at a time to be entrepreneurs but not just in business schools but in general because an education system that supports entrepreneurship not only helps the entrepreneur himself but it helps the families, the students, the society it helps them see the entrepreneurial path as a viable and valuable career path. I'd like to add to the education aspect because I recently read that the largest growth area in curriculum developed in the US in the last 10 years has been in entrepreneurship education. We don't know ultimately whether that will succeed but it may indirectly have young graduates be risk averse just because they're smarter but from the research that's been done and that ultimately led to the lean startup methodology folks have looked at about 70 years worth of data of why startups fail because at least in this country after 10 years only 3 startups out of every 10 will still be in existence so they looked carefully at that and have built this into curricula to at least have these graduates understand what to avoid, what risks to avoid. So that is just such an important point to refer to the educational aspects of verseness. And now we have a question from Lima Pru asking if policies affect small businesses differently than large companies. How can policy makers be encouraged to implement legislation give tours fostering small businesses? Yeah it's sort of so in the US it's sort of a done deal because we have the small business administration and so I think I have to pass this one off to either Christina for us. Christina Juana I'll pick it back. You can start for us no problem. No go ahead that's fine go ahead. Okay so I just it's important to know I just want to add to what we said before that small businesses new and young companies particularly have fewer resources than regular businesses with complying with certain regulations and say the taxes you have to pay to hire a new person so if you are a young company trying to grow but you can't afford to hire somebody then you know your chances of growing are much fewer so just as an example of a policy could be to exempt from certain taxes to exempt companies that are trying to grow in their first few years so without regard it's important to differentiate between the size of the company so not just small business but new and young companies so I think that's where the difference can be made in policies for entrepreneurs where you look at the age of the company rather than the size. Yeah I mean based on my experience in the US that problem had been solved but also like I'll give a live example we are launching a new business and I think the number one risk when you are a small company and you don't have enough resources that inundation of bureaucracy that takes away the entrepreneur from building the business but they're running complying with this, complying with that, doing so I think simplifying how you launch a company, how you create the legal structure of the company, the tax code some of the labor regulation that it's easier for a larger companies to manage because they've got the resources, if that's there are some exemptions or if there are some lower maybe standards or laws that could be applicable to the size of the company it would be very helpful because the bureaucracy it is a choke hold on some of the young entrepreneurs when you start the inflexible labor market small companies need to hire quickly and they need to let go people quickly and if the labor market is not flexible for that it becomes a financial burden and it becomes also an operational burden on the smaller companies let me go to a great question that is coming from the Twitter hashtag just tech connect from Osage in Nigeria and the question is how can citizens participate and influence public policies that kind of relates with what we have been discussing here but I think it's if you want to just briefly touch base on that Anita do you want to start just real quick yeah it's I mean it's such a different structure here in the US and I predominantly deal with STEM science and technology engineering mathematics and we're fortunate in that we have some really strong independent entities like our professional societies that we can work through because as a single citizen you're probably not going to be able to have the impact nor will you have the time to engage in policy development but that's a part of our culture that has grown over the last 50 to 70 years that's very very effective because they tend to be neutral and I mean as you know it doesn't matter if you're in chemical engineering or in medicine that there is a group that represents all of those cohorts in this country that can in fact impact policy so depending again on your culture you need to probably work through them and as I said they're very effective in this country now from Senegal and the question is access to funding is a common challenge what policies do you think have been successful to help foster access to funding Christina do you want to talk about funding yes it's a common challenge across the world the programs that have helped with funding the ones that have been most successful usually tie it also to mentorship so it's not just important to receive money to help you grow but also to receive the know-how the connections it's all about the importance of mentorship that it's tied to the financial success of a company you talked about funding before Furious do you want to compliment something that you said before the best funders are entrepreneurs successful entrepreneurs they understand the value of innovation they understand the risk associated with it so funding is a complete cycle so if I'm going to lend you money I'm going to be able to trust you that you're going to execute and treat my money properly so to Christina's point having mentorship or advisors or people around you that could help you avoid a lot of the mistakes that others have made creates that much more value and trust between the entrepreneur and the funder so if we assume that access to funding is available i.e. the laws of the land helped create the ability to lend and ability to gain access to equity in that company that you lend the ability to exit pretty quickly so I can get my money back so the flow of capital and the vehicles of lending is part of a vibrant financial system then access becomes easier but with access needs to be responsibility and needs the connection and the mentoring and the advising that would help the entrepreneur better spend and be responsible for that funding I just want to take a moment now to thank you for watching and here's a photo of their group and that leads me to my next question and my next question and Christina maybe I'm going to point this to you since you're not here in studio with us I think it's a little bit logical for that and the question is what survival tips do you have for entrepreneurs in potential hostile entrepreneurial ecosystems yes so I think it's important that you get the right legal advice and that you get the right team together so form your team wisely with people that complement your own skills also it's important that you know what the resources are in your ecosystem there are a lot of programs there that are used by the same entrepreneurs over and over or you just might not know they exist and it might be useful for you so try to if available look at a map of your ecosystem try to create a mental map of where you can get this or that help there's a lot of free legal advice that you can get from certain programs and private sector actors that want to help entrepreneurs great thank you now we have a question from the beautiful city of Lima Peru and the question is what are the most important factors that the legislator must consider when creating entrepreneurship policies yeah don't politicize though I think is probably the single most important thing and then create an ecosystem that offers a portfolio of investment there are support opportunities for entrepreneurship so you know you're always going to have the very high risk early stage kind of entrepreneurship where maybe even there's a research component then you know you're going to have a less risky mid stage and then you're going to have a scale up and so there should be opportunities that are developed in your ecosystem where not all the funding necessarily comes from a government agency but that they're in the private sector there are also opportunities in that portfolio to fund these startups at any stage and Amita since I got you fired up there's a question from Maroko directed to you and the question is how does the US National Science Foundation promote innovation globally through science and technology is this only a one hour now one of the missions of the National Science Foundation is to engage globally and so we do through any number of programs international programs that not only support American researchers but support us to form collaborations overseas we have any number of programs that will even fund students to go offshore and so yes that is one of the missions of the NSF and so complementing that it's a given that federal budgets around the world are tighter than ever right and so what short and long-term policies do you think within this context do you think it that's hard to address because in essence our policy in this country is driven by a budget cycle that's usually like two years out and that budget cycle because there are so many different committees and whatever involved tends to fund incremental change in funding for different areas having said that, that is really not always the case because as a country we're really very flexible in how we can react to events so in the US there's something called the Office of Science and Technology Policy that advises the president and will in effect influence that certain kinds of funding go to very needy areas say STEM education or manufacturing or nano or whatever so and in addition even though as citizens we always complain that our congress moves as a snails pace when there are events and we saw that say with Sputnik we've seen that with a couple of natural disasters where there needs to be a reaction to an event we're very good and very agile at making those investments happen and then the other that I mentioned earlier is that in this country that private investment is at an all time high and so those folks also influence what policy doesn't become policy but it's de facto policy occurs in the country because they're going to invest in the things where they see there is the most impact and payback alright so that leads me to my next question and the next question probably is for you Christine which is a question about network and we know that talent is everywhere in the world but from my experience working in Portugal in science technology policy one thing that we created back then that worked really really well an instrument that worked really well was what we call the UTAN the university technology enterprise network because we created that network for people from different parts of the ecosystem could work together because they were not doing it before so technology transfer officers, entrepreneurs policy makers, funding agents all of them working together we did not work before and so my question is how crucial in European are these networking effects of people and how do you put people talking together I think it's very crucial to jump in first because it is through those networks when the network comes together that you can see all these collisions of talent and ideas happening that's how teams form, that's how startup ideas emerge even so very crucial I would certainly concur I mean case in point that's what we do a type as a diaspora group we knew that we have technologists, we have professors we have lawyers and we knew in order to create any kind of impact it's the ability to communicate the ability to form an organization that is connected that can share ideas and then transfer those ideas so it is absolutely crucial for startups to be part of or founders or technologists to be part of a bigger network of talent because that's where you might be able the idea, the next partner the next market, the next funder networking for any founder or a CEO of a small startup should be a portion of what they do is to network it's very critical that's where you can also find the emotional support because the entrepreneurial path is tough and engaging with people that are struggling with the same cultural stigmas or the same challenges it's extremely helpful I fully agree just to go and say well how did you do this I understand that you had this issue could you help me and it could be a 10 minute conversation with your network and boom you avoided a major mishap within your startup so I fully agree network like there's no tomorrow be part of every organization that is relevant to your business and make you that much more successful or give you that much more factors to be successful right and also don't limit your network to your local entrepreneurship ecosystem with today's technology you can network really globally you can I can talk about our own programs that cover 150 countries you don't need to travel sometimes to participate in this or that event or international competitions you can access its resources easily through many programs so take advantage of the ease of international networking these days alright so I have another question and it kind of resonates with countries being larger or smaller and my question is should countries with relatively small markets concern themselves with internal policies in such a flat global environment or how do you maybe Christina maybe you can you can talk about it a little bit so I think when it comes to promoting entrepreneurship through policymaking it's whether you're small or big shouldn't constrain you to just look internally talent itself it's a very competitive commodity these days that our countries are giving visas for entrepreneurs to come in and not just bring their skills but also their mindset their culture so even for policymakers staying exclusively really local might not be the best answer and in your opinion what is the best and easiest place in the world to be an entrepreneur if there is such a place they don't exist I mean I tell you people may say that the USA is the easiest place but God I tell you it is highly competitive so I think you create your own success and create your own environment now is it easier to do business in the USA of course it is easier but you're gonna face a lot of competitors a lot of people are going after the same funding dollars are going after the same market so you gain and you lose as an entrepreneur my advice really is really think globally what technology did today regardless what market you're in manufacturing, hospitality it doesn't matter look at the technology and think of the market as the global market build your solution locally but think of the market globally and then all of a sudden it doesn't matter where you are you're competing with someone in India you're competing someone in Tunisia or in Morocco or in the Silicon Valley so I don't think there is a place to be an easy to be an entrepreneur it's a tough the US is a great place but you're gonna be punching the face a lot of times so our last question is from Rabat and asks what are the types of government organizations that are available to come into a country to help with developing the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem and maybe a follow up question is what international organizations can help how can this happen case in point just we're here to help so look for associations or local or global look for conferences check with your local universities see what visiting professors are coming attend those conferences look what we have we've been engaged for three four years and it's phenomenal what such an organization can do and then you guys are part of both of you are part of an organization that is very helpful yes we have sorry go ahead one of the things that's always under look well mainly because academics are used to going to academic conferences period is to go to trade shows and this covers also the concept of networking too you can find out more at a trade show about your technology and the climate in hardly any other way so we encourage that also I'm sorry for interrupting you Christina Christina go ahead I was just going to mention that we have a network that's called the start up nations network it gathers for candid lesson sharing knowledge sharing and even failure sharing that worked in what didn't in their own efforts to build a start up nation movement so you probably heard of start up Chile start up Denmark start up Britain all those are initiatives that I try to build an ecosystem so it could be a useful network for you to talk to some of the people that have tried this before of course keep in mind that you won't be able to replicate exactly what others did the nature of the initiatives are very diverse but it might be a network where you can gather some ideas and feedback well and since we're talking about global networks we'd like to give another shout out to a viewing group in Morocco and here's the picture and I'm afraid that we are out of time thank you so much for our wonderful panelists and everyone viewing today special thanks once again to the hosts of the viewing groups around the globe for mobilizing their entrepreneurial communities the GIST initiative also includes the technology idea or tech I pitch competition global public voting for tech I is still open for another two days decide which of our amazing 76 global science and technology entrepreneurs will continue to the finals held in Kenya at the global entrepreneurship summit by voting at gistnetwork.org and while you are voting for our tech I finalists vote for your country to win a GIST startup boot camp which provides on the ground entrepreneurship training and mentoring delivered by top U.S. experts and in-country partners you can watch to see if your favorite tech I semi-finalist win at the global entrepreneurship summit by watching the live stream at GIST 2015.org our next tech connect event on August the 10th will discuss the importance of intellectual property rights for entrepreneurs we hope to see you here for that discussion stay informed about this and other GIST programs by registering at gistnetwork.com and in conclusion today I'd like to encourage all of you to stay informed about your country's science and technology policies and get involved in formulating new policies that will help to build a successful innovation ecosystem for you and other entrepreneurs around the world we hope to see you all on GIST net and stay tuned for more opportunities for entrepreneurs like you from the department of commerce thank you I hope you've enjoyed this GIST tech connect focused on the impact of policy on innovation and entrepreneurship tech connects are part of the department of state's global innovation through science and technology or GIST initiative my name is Joshua Mandel I'm the senior advisor for innovation and competitiveness at the US department of commerce I believe I have the best job in the US government because I get to work with entrepreneurs like you from around the world every day in order to create policies and programs that really work for entrepreneurs as you learn today one of the most critical components of policymaking is to ensure that your ideas are part of the process the department of commerce is America's innovation agency and part of our mission for entrepreneurs like you take your ideas and turn them into thriving businesses many of our programs are designed to foster innovation ecosystems that help provide facilities for entrepreneurs to collaborate increase the flow of capital towards promising entrepreneurs and improve the pipeline of talent that you all need in order to grow your businesses in short the US department of commerce and this administration speak start up and are constantly innovating new programs which aim to put the right tools into the hands of entrepreneurs everywhere for instance we're piloting a new program here at commerce called start up global start up global trains entrepreneurs and start ups at business incubators around the country on how to export from the very beginning this program has already been instrumental in helping new businesses increase their customer base and market ability around the world we've also deployed 17 presidential ambassadors for global entrepreneurship or pages including Steve Case, Tori Birch and Brian Chesky celebrated American entrepreneurs whose energy ideas and experience will help develop the next generation of entrepreneurs both here and abroad the initiative is organized around providing opportunities and pathways for entrepreneurs to access capital access talent and education and access that one moment of hope and inspiration that so many successful entrepreneurs around the world have cited as what made them follow their dreams we also make investments called regional innovation strategy grants that help communities build proof of concept and rapid prototyping centers, business incubators and roll out local seed capital funding mechanisms to support early stage entrepreneurs these types of investments are what I consider to be the future of economic development in the US and around the world creating a climate where innovation and entrepreneurship thrive are key components for any country wanting to be competitive in the knowledge supporting science technology innovation and the entrepreneurs that turn this knowledge into great businesses has proven to be one of the best investments a country can make to fuel economic growth create jobs and solve some of the grand challenges facing our society and planet I encourage you to continue to engage the gist community through these webinars and other programs and seek partnerships with other participants who are as dedicated as you I want to thank our tech connect panel of experts and you for joining us today to share your experiences and questions it is my sincere hope that you will continue to explore all that gist has to offer on gistnetwork.org finally as a reminder the 2015 gist tech I pitch competition public voting will close on June 11th so there are a few more days for you to vote for your favorite semi finalist to advance to the finals hosted at the global entrepreneurship summit in Kenya this summer vote at gistnetwork.org good luck everyone and thank you for being a part of the gist network