On August 4, 2015 the White House held its first Demo Day where President Barack Obama personally welcomed startup founders from diverse backgrounds to “demo” their startups. The event was part of the President’s push for inclusive entrepreneurship.
Doug Rand, Assistant Director for Entrepreneurship at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, who joined Startup Nations members at their annual Summit last November in Seoul, asked the Startup Nations Executive Committee to share the news of a new set of actions by the government to diversify the entrepreneurial talent pipeline in the United States, including:
- The Growth Accelerator Fund for startup accelerators, incubators, and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models to compete for awards of $50,000 each.
- The President’s “Startup in a Day” initiative that will empower mayors to cut red tape for local entrepreneurs. This effort involves 27 prizes of $50,000 each to help cities streamline the licensing, permitting, and other requirements needed to start a business in their areas, with the goal of enabling entrepreneurs to apply for everything necessary to begin within one business day. The Small Business Administration (SBA) is also awarding a $250,000 cash prize to the city of Los Angeles to create an open-source solution that will be replicable and scalable on a broad basis.
- Introducing hundreds of entrepreneurial scientist teams across the country to a rigorous process for moving their discoveries out of the lab and into the marketplace.
- Extending the TechHire initiative, which brings together employers and local governments to create newer, faster training pathways, like coding boot camps.
The government has also partnered with private sector actors, including venture capital firms and engineer school deans, who joined the call for greater racial, ethnic and gender diversity in entrepreneurship.