Welcome to ‘The Startup State’ - a weekly bulletin from the GEN Policy and Research team highlighting key entrepreneurship announcements, reports, commentary and features from around the world.
GET Fellows
The Global Entrepreneurship Network and IDB Lab, the innovation and venture arm of the Inter-American Development Bank, have opened applications for the inaugural GET Fellows cohort, a new program to strengthen entrepreneurship ecosystem leadership across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Read the announcement | Promotional toolkit | Apply
News
- Victoria, Australia has launched Innovation Victoria, a new agency to support startups, entrepreneurs, and investors from early-stage development through to global growth. The agency builds on the achievements of LaunchVic and Breakthrough Victoria (Invest Victoria)
- Thailand has announced a 1 billion baht ($30.1m) initiative to co-invest in promising startups. The National Innovation Agency will lead on three separate funding models, including a 1bn Baht private equity fund, of which at least 500m will be contributed by the NIA and the Stock Exchange of Thailand (Bangkok Post)
- Nigeria has launched the Nigeria AI Scaling Hub (NAISH) and a national shared compute infrastructure to expand access to AI resources and accelerate innovation (TechReviewAfrica)
- Indonesia will implement a startup act by the end of the year. The legislation will seek to simplify government support programs and incentives (Nikkei Asia)
- Ukraine has launched Brave International, a new framework to allow the country's defense innovation platform Brave1 to finance defense startups not only in Ukraine but also in partner countries. The move will allow the rapid launch of joint grant competitions with international partners (Ukraine Business News)
- The United Kingdom is considering introducing a £5m ($6.7m) invitation-only investor visa, focused on investment in UK companies. A previous scheme was closed in 2022 after concerns that it had become a channel for corrupt wealth into London real estate (IMI Daily)
Comment and analysis
- What actually builds an entrepreneurial community (and why your city is probably getting it wrong) (Paul O'Brien, author, Startup Economist)
- In response: The best entrepreneurial communities don't just grow. They compound (Jon Atkinson, CEO, The Idea Village)
- When innovation becomes security: Finland's innovation ecosystem in transition (Satu Vasamo-Joskinen, visiting fellow, Atlantic Council)
- The UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance should tackle the AI language gap (Christian Schlaepfer, policy advisor, Starling Institute)
- The wicked conundrum of being a community builder (Chris Heivly, managing director, Build the Fort)
- How Egypt's business environment helped shape national entrepreneurs: The Sawiris family as a case study (James Carter, writer, El-Balad)
End European tech pessimism (William Echikson, non-resident senior fellow, Center for European Policy Analysis)
Features
- From catch-up to competitiveness: Poland's entrepreneurs set a new agenda (XYZ)
- Hussain Al Mahmoudi: Why Sharjah is building a tech corridor to Cluj-Napoca (The Recursive)
- Over 100 startup founders demand a change in economic policy (Munich Startups)
- America at 250: Celebrating free enterprise (U.S. Chamber of Commerce)
- Emerging markets need a different corporate venture capital model (Global Corporate Venturing)
- India is testing an alternative to Silicon Valley's AI playbook (Rest of World)
Boosting women's digital entrepreneurship in Burkina Faso, Congo, Ethiopia and Namibia (UN Economic Commission for Africa)
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The opinions expressed in the articles above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Global Entrepreneurship Network.