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Jonathan Ortmans

StartUP America!

February promises to be a busy month in Washington for entrepreneurship policy. Next Tuesday February 8th will see Kauffman’s annual State of Entrepreneurship Address delivered by Carl Schramm followed by Capitol Hill briefings and a host of interesting activity on job creation. Today, I post from an event at the White House where President Obama has just announced a “StartUP America Partnership,” a new initiative aimed at fostering successful innovative, high growth businesses in the U.S. It marks a commitment of the current administration to a national entrepreneurship-based strategy to stimulate economic growth and the creation of quality jobs.

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Posted by: Jonathan Ortmans
on January 31, 2011
Comments (1)
Category:  Growth & Poverty 
Colombia’s “Bulletproof” Entrepreneurs

Colombia is the fifth-largest economy in Latin America in terms of GDP. The country boasts one of the best coffees in the world, rich natural resources, abundant gold and emerald production, and a relatively educated populace. And despite its international reputation for drug cartels and violence, the latest Doing Business 2011 ranking suggests things could be improving. Colombia is ranked number 39 among 183 countries in terms of the ease of doing business.

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Posted by: Jonathan Ortmans
on January 24, 2011
Comments (5)
Category:  Growth & Poverty 
Tunisia’s Tipping Point

Last Friday, as I was meeting in my office in Washington, DC with Nazeh Ben Ammar, President of the Tunisian American Chamber of Commerce, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, now the former president of Tunisia, was fleeing his country. As my guest awaited word on when the airport would re-open and Lufthansa would be permitted to return him home to his family in Tunis, we talked about his country, entrepreneurship and a new generation of youth in the Arab region.

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Posted by: Jonathan Ortmans
on January 18, 2011
Comments (0)
Category:  Growth & Poverty 
Entrepreneurship in 2011

Given the momentum gained in 2010 to get policymakers thinking about entrepreneurship, it is reasonable to expect that America’s commitment to entrepreneurship will grow, especially once we see that commitment translated into concrete policy action. Of course, the hope is that those policy actions will be the right ones—inspiring confidence, building up decision-making around risk-taking and investing, spurring new enterprises built on innovative products and services, and along with it, job creation. With that sense of optimism, comes the vision of a global economy finally starting to shake free from a global crisis.

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Posted by: Jonathan Ortmans
on January 10, 2011
Comments (4)
Category:  Growth & Poverty 
A Look Back at Entrepreneurship in 2010

Since the economic crisis broke out, entrepreneurship has attracted increased attention as a key path to economic recovery. I was happy to see that entrepreneurs have been set apart from some of the negative perceptions of big business and the blame being placed on large financial institutions for the economic meltdown. The question is whether such recognition of entrepreneurs as an engine for growth and innovation translated into concrete pro-entrepreneurship policies.

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Posted by: Jonathan Ortmans
on January 03, 2011
Comments (1)
Category:  Growth & Poverty  Global 
Spurring Indigenous Entrepreneurial Growth in Pakistan

As the Defense Department’s public review last Thursday of its war strategy in Afghanistan points to a slow troop withdrawal in 2011, efforts to better understand how to spur growth after such conflicts are speeding into top gear. A new cadre of economists, military leaders and other specialists are writing a long-needed canon to guide how to re-build economies during their transition from war to peace using indigenous entrepreneurship. Expeditionary Economics (ExpECON), as the field is now known, is informing large questions of national security strategy, positioning economic growth as a more important component of the formula for strategic success. While I defer to these experts in assessing the entrepreneurial health of current war-torn economies, I thought it timely to take a look at some of the neighbors engaged in their conflicts.

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Posted by: Jonathan Ortmans
on December 20, 2010
Comments (6)
Category:  Growth & Poverty 
A Tax Code for Job Creators and Growth

Today and tomorrow the Senate will vote on President Obama’s announced deal to extend for two years all of the tax cuts, both those from the Bush years and those for low-income workers from last year’s stimulus package. Under this proposal, recently expired benefits for the long-term unemployed would also be extended for another 13 months. In addition, the agreement would cut payroll taxes for one-year. What does all this mean for entrepreneurs?

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Posted by: Jonathan Ortmans
on December 13, 2010
Comments (3)
Category:  Growth & Poverty  Tax Code 
Entrepreneurship Talk and Action in the Maghreb

I have just returned from a brief last minute visit to Algiers where I spoke at a conference focused on the Maghreb countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania. The objectives of the Maghreb Entrepreneurship Conference, a follow-on to President Obama’s Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship held in April 2010 in Washington, DC was to discuss strategies to promote job creation through entrepreneurship.

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Posted by: Jonathan Ortmans
on December 06, 2010
Comments (1)
Category:  Growth & Poverty  Global 
Uruguay’s Entrepreneurship Fast-tracking

On my recent trip to South America during Global Entrepreneurship Week, I cast a mournful eye over Uruguay where, were it not for problems with flight schedules I had hoped to visit. Uruguay, the South American nation nestled between Brazil and Argentina, is trying to take the fast track toward becoming a startup economy.

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Posted by: Jonathan Ortmans
on November 29, 2010
Comments (1)
Category:  Global  Growth & Poverty 
Global Entrepreneurship Week Sunsets with Renewed Hunger for Growth

I am happy to report that in its third year, Global Entrepreneurship Week grew by leaps and bounds. As more countries take advantage of this global movement, more minds are pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams. GEW has not just inspired students looking for a way to reach their goals, but the leaders of nations who were inspired in their efforts to boost growth by the sheer energy of the millions of participants in GEW activities during the past two weeks. In case you haven’t been following, here are a couple of anecdotes from this year’s Week, and the reaction it produced among some of the world’s leaders.

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Posted by: Jonathan Ortmans
on November 22, 2010
Comments (0)
Category:  Global  Growth & Poverty 

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