Town Hall Meeting: President's Summit on Entrepreneurship (Part 1 of 2)

On April 28, 2010, the Office of Public Liaison hosted a town hall meeting for NGO representatives, business leaders, and academic officials to discuss the White House Entrepreneurship Summit, which took place April 26-27 in Washington, DC. In addition to the in-person audience students and faculty from Babson College, Duke University, and the University of Central Florida participated in the discussion via video conference. The town hall featured remarks by Special Representative to Muslim Communities Farah Pandith and Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference Rashad Hussain, as well as E-Summit delegate Asim Siddiqui, a community organizer from the UK. Each emphasized the importance of U.S. engagement with Muslim communities and working together to build entrepreneurial partnerships. In his June 2009 Cairo speech, President Obama announced that the U.S. would host a Summit on Entrepreneurship to identify how we can strengthen ties between business leaders, foundations, and entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world. Co-hosted by the Departments of Commerce and State, the Summit brought together more than 275 participants from over 50 countries. The Summit highlighted the importance of entrepreneurship as a way of building relationships that lead to greater opportunity at home and abroad. A panel discussion followed this portion of the town hall, and is also available on our Blog Talk Radio station.