SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS ANDREW OBRIEN; DEAN KREHMEYER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA DARDEN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS INSTITUTE FOR BUSINESS IN SOCIETY; MATTHEW SWIFT, CO-CHAIRMAN, CO-FOUNDER, AND INTERIM CEO OF CONCORDIA; AND NICK LOGOTHETIS, CO-CHAIRMAN AND CO-FOUNDER OF CONCORDIAMODERATOR: Thank you again for coming to the New York Foreign Press Center. Since everyones made their introductions, Im not going to go introducing our speakers by name. But all of you have their bios. Todays briefing is on the record. After our guests make remarks, well open the floor to questions. Please state your name and your media affiliation before you do. And with that, let me turn it over to Special Representative OBrien.MR OBRIEN: Good afternoon, everybody. As I mentioned, Im Drew OBrien, and I am Secretary John Kerrys Special Representative for Global Partnerships at the U.S. Department of State. And our office is, obviously, delighted to share this platform today with the Darden School from the University of Virginia and Nick and Matt from Concordia. Im going to talk a little bit about the importance of partnerships at the State Department and within the U.S. Government and then and that will sort of help us frame what were doing here with the P3 Impact Award. So our office, the Secretarys Office of Global Partnerships, was launched in 2009, and we look at it as the entry point for collaboration between the public sector, the private sector, civil society, NGOs, universities. Weve talked a lot about universities over the years, so thats why were particularly delighted that Darden is with us in this and civil society. Under President Obama, public-private partnerships have become a priority for the U.S. Government, also under Secretary Kerry. Theyre a critical mechanism for strengthening our diplomatic connections, enhancing our development work, promoting economic growth, and safeguarding our long-term security as a nation.Partnerships bring together the best of the public and private sector resources to leverage the creativity, innovation, and core resources of partners for greater impact and to create a holistic, sustainable solution to critical challenges.We were our office was created to serve as a resource for the rest of the State Department in learning how to do diplomatic and development work through partnerships. And we manage a number of these things on our own, a number of these partnerships on our own, supporting the tech ecosystem in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Southeast Asia, to were the office, the point person for diaspora populations within the U.S. Government, to using mobile technology to help people in remote parts of the world. So we do sort of a number of different things. Tomorrow, well have a big gathering on a virtual educational exchange at the Aspen Institute that will connect students and teachers in the Mideast and North Africa with students and teachers in the United States.So what were doing we all do pieces of this work, and were here together these next few days what I call spread the partnership gospel to others. Were recognizing great work thats done by our partners and organizations around