thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
the United States Cambridge, Massachusetts; Silicon Valley; Charlottesville, Virginia; and just to name a few of sort of the Miami places we work with in connection with aspiring entrepreneurs, and takes them through trainings over the course of five to seven days on how to pitch a product, how to talk to an investor soup-to-nuts entrepreneurship crash course. We do that. The Global Entrepreneurship Summit was just on the continent this past year. Theres a lot happening there. Theres a lot of things to be excited about.QUESTION: Thank you.MR OBRIEN: Yes, sir.QUESTION: Bingxin Li from Peoples Daily in China, but Im based at the UN. Talking about the Africa the partnership in Africa, China has a lot of investment in Africa, and there used to be a lot of state-owned companies there, but now there are more and more private companies in Africa, and also as well as the U.S.MR OBRIEN: Right.QUESTION: Mainly, theyre private companies. How is there a possibility of U.S. and China partnership in helping African countries to especially in the industrialization of them, (inaudible)?MR OBRIEN: I think one of the things that actually of the equations and Im sorry to jump on this question, gentlemen --PARTICIPANT: Please.MR OBRIEN: One of the equations we see that works very well is when we do have a multilateral or even a bilateral arrangement with another country on a particular issue area. We see this work very well with health and health care. We see it work very well I mentioned the event we have tomorrow down in Washington at the Aspen Institute of virtual educational exchanges, because its multilateral. Its the United States Government working not only with the private sector and NGOs, but also with other governments. So I would say the direct answer is yes, and its a matter of doing what were doing here, which is trying to find the pieces to put together for success.MODERATOR: Yes.QUESTION: Vasco De Jesus Rodrigues, Im from Vasco Press Communications in Brazil. Any thoughts on the Brazilian situation with the economy --MR OBRIEN: So --QUESTION: -- on the low side? Okay, please --MR OBRIEN: Anyone want to who wants to I mean, I can talk about --MR KREHMEYER: Well let you start on that one. (Laughter.)MR OBRIEN: Sure, but so we work with other countries that whose economies are on an upswing, we work with them that are stagnant, and we work with them when they are on a downturn. So I think what we do is actually its not I dont want to say its immune from the larger economic situation, but in fact, were a solution what were trying to do here. Public-private partnerships are a solution to that. We try the things that government cannot do, we go to the private sector to help us. For the things that the private sector cannot do, either were doing or helping find other pieces to put together.Theres a very significant large corporate U.S. presence in Brazil. General Motors comes to mind. Its a great and a great partner to our office
to the Secretarys office, and they do help with other initiatives around the world. So were I think were one of the solutions when it comes to sort of difficult economic times. Were one of the we sort of keep on chugging. In fact, opportunity may even knock when that happens. MR KREHMEYER: I would just sort of add, and another way of looking at it is times of stress are often some of the times that create some of the innovations. And we actually, at the Darden School, have another awards program where we have looked at, within the Commonwealth of Virginia and looking at growing it, what makes resilient businesses resilient. And its looking at how have those companies that are in some of the most difficult economic areas within Virginia how have they thrived, how have they grown, how have they added employees.And once again, its an award, but lets dont stop at the award. We certainly dont. We want to take the learnings from that, which weve done, given it to our faculty to look at what are some of the success factors. And Ill tell you what one of them is. One of them is kind of what Drew referred to, is is there an ecosystem around those businesses that is providing support. And that includes communities that are engaged with the business, that includes trade associations, that includes government, public sector partners all those things that create an ecosystem where success raises all those stakeholders together. So weve seen that on the scale of a Virginia. I would suggest that the findings would be true globally as well.QUESTION: Could you give us a bit of sorry, Im Gabriel Mellqvist with Swedens business newspaper. Could you give a historical perspective on the growth of this compared to five, ten years ago as the private sectors obviously demonstrated a bigger interest, or how has this (inaudible)?MR SWIFT: I would say significantly. I think --MR OBRIEN: They know this stuff inside and out. (Laughter.) This is their thing.MR SWIFT: I think for the last 15 years youve seen public-private partnerships, or P3s as we call them, as becoming very trendy in the business community. I think there are so many instances that can be cited where theres been a failure of the public sector, a failure of the private sector, to accomplish what they need to. I think disaster relief is a very obvious arena where the private sector has stepped in and played an enormous role. And it is partnerships between corporations and governments state, local, federal government here in the U.S. where that has played an enormous role. And so one of the reasons why Nick and I founded Concordia in early 2011 was because we saw this as a trend that was growing. And if youre the CEO of a large corporation, whether its your corporate social responsibility initiatives or something else, the public-private partnership model, I think, is a very appealing one to a CEO.MR LOGOTHETIS: And its more and more, in certain cases, becoming
not only appealing but essential if you want to do business in some places. And I mean, we can say that there are another reason why Matt and I founded Concordia was there are at times it is difficult to work with business and it is difficult to work with government. People I think the question we get asked the most is: Whos more difficult business or government? (Laughter.) And it really theres no answer to that. It really varies in case to case. In some cases you have a very entrepreneurial government, and I mean in different countries and different cities, who are pushing for it, who are acting like business in a sense. And in other cases you have a very bureaucratic government and a very entrepreneurial business where but it really varies. And so what we tried to do was, as one of our main tenets, create a hub where those two groups could come together and learn from one another.MR SWIFT: And let me comment on the private sector side. Heres what where we see this going. The CSR models at a lot of corporations today I think have an impact, but I think the public-private partnership model the tool of P3s are very much going to become the norm as part of the CSR approach that these companies take. And thats very important, because theres a lot of goodwill and interest on the public sector side and the private sector side, and in so many instances the public sector brings tremendous scale, the private sector brings great efficiency, and those two brought together really can create powerful P3s. And I think all of the P3s that applied for the award this year, and certainly the five finalists, which will be highlighted over the next two days, with the winner being announced by Drew and Dean and our director of research on Friday I think youll see the evidence of that.MR OBRIEN: Yeah, and when I first took this position, when I was appointed to this position almost two and a half years ago, one of the first reactions you get from people is that you basically have your hand out, that youre the U.S. Government going to talk to the private sector about what can whats in it for us, can you donate to this, can you donate to that. And thats one part of the job. I came to understand very quickly that its and again, this is these folks around the table with me study this and know this this is about so many other things beyond money. This is beyond youre its the CSR that sort of everybody has in common, its that social responsibility that everybody has in common. It can be a question of resources. And Im throwing names up, but Bank of America is very good with a very great partner to our office and to the State Department on resources at different level. IBM has a model where their employees go and work in country. Not only are they working
at maybe an IBM facility, but theyre actually engaged in some sort of public-private initiative in the area. Thats a tremendous model. So as much as this can be about money that goes to a certain effort, you name it, this is about a lot of other things resources, people sort of putting their shoulder behind it and their brains behind it. So again, everybody with me studies this and knows sort of the intellectual promise of this, and it is as Matt said, its it is where everything is headed on the business front. They were very wise to go down this road.QUESTION: A quick follow-up. Do we know why companies suddenly are so interested in this? Do you have any idea where it comes from?MR OBRIEN: I would say the pressures of the global economy are making companies better global citizens.MR SWIFT: Yeah. I think also the information revolution has made every person in the world sort of aware of whats going on around them and sort of created a reporter out of everyone. And that puts a lot of pressure on companies to act in a certain way. I think you also see a lot of cities cities are really leaders in this front and countries that are looking to reconstruct or re-reconstruct, like a city like Athens, Greece. Its not an emerging country. Its sort of re-emerging, in a sense, after economic depression there, using trying to use public-private partnerships as a tool to really reinvent their city. And cities often have more flexibility to act over states or countries.MR KREHMEYER: And I will add from my perspective students.MR OBRIEN: Students.MR KREHMEYER: Students, millenials. This generation is one that and I think we should all be very optimistic about it its a generation that wants to positively change the world. And you see all those complexities that we talked about. You see the integration of the global economy. You see the information age. They are looking at how can I lead organizations and lead initiatives that are really going to drive a lot of positive impact, notable impact. And for all the reasons that in particular Matt was just describing of why the public sector and private sector are coming together in these partnerships, those are exactly the reasons that students see as well. And that is certainly a tailwind that is pushing these public-private partnerships, I think, in a very positive way.QUESTION: I was just going to on a (inaudible) note, this sounds like the TED talk. (Laughter.) And on a serious note, I think its I mean, especially with the breakthrough of technology, there are so many ways to get information across the world without having to be there. So I was just wondering again, in developing countries, if there are any plans, especially on the Acordia part whats your organization again?MR SWIFT: Concordia.QUESTION: Concordia, Im sorry to make this information available via a virtual training platform so that other young people, especially entrepreneurs and professionals around the world, would gain access to this information and
be able to use it to empower their community.MR SWIFT: Absolutely. And thats something that we will do in the future. We have not done that yet, but every at all of our forums and especially our annual summit, we have a series of sessions that we call P3 toolboxes, which is really where you come and you learn real the basics, the fundamentals of how to construct a public-private partnership. Those have been very popular with our community, our global community that comes together, especially for the annual summit. But I think incorporating technology in that would be a would be a great way to --MR LOGOTHETIS: In other words, to package those eventually and then sort of release them to the world.QUESTION: Its also very clear that young people around the world actually have they know the solutions to their problems; they just dont have the resources to make some of these things happen. And I think an organization such as yours do really a lot of good if they have access to that information.MR SWIFT: Absolutely.MR LOGOTHETIS: Absolutely.QUESTION: Im a little bit slow, so can you give me can you tell me more about the competition how it works, who applies, what are the criteria, and just a little background?MR SWIFT: Dean?MR KREHMEYER: Sure, happy to do it. So what we do is we open the competition at the beginning of the year and use a number of media channels, social media channels, including great channels at all of our organizations, to invite applications. And we invite them from, as you might imagine, partners in the private sector, partners in the public sector, and oftentimes NGOs that might be involved as well. So we invite those. We extensively use our network. The applications, when theyre received, are then reviewed by an esteemed panel of judges. Each of the applications gets multiple readings, and the judges then select the finalists the five finalists and the winner, which, as Matt said, we will be featuring the finalists over the next two days at the summit and announcing the winner on Friday.MR LOGOTHETIS: Are we allowed to say the finalists now or no?MR SWIFT: Of course, thats public who the finalists are. We can take you through the finalists if you would like.QUESTION: Sure.MR SWIFT: So I think well start with the first one. Partners in Food Solutions. Thats a partnership between USAID as well as TechnoServe, and its a partnership with General Mills, Cargill, Royal DSM, and Buhler; also a partnership between the Nature Conservancy and Dow Chemical; a partnership focusing on Madagascar between Coca-Cola, RAIN, WSUP, and the Africa Foundation; TV White Space, which is a partnership between Microsoft and USAID; and then also the U.S. Global Development Lab partnering with Village Capital. Did I did I miss anything? MR KREHMEYER: Yep, thats correct. Yep.MR OBRIEN: Thats it.MR SWIFT: And so they will be there will be five-minute features of each partnership over the two-day period, and then the winner will actually be announced by Secretary Kerry. MR OBRIEN: Thats
right, via video. (Laughter.)MR SWIFT: Yes. (Laughter.)MR KREHMEYER: Secretary Kerry.MR SWIFT: Asterisk.MR LOGOTHETIS: Asterisk.MR SWIFT: Yeah. (Laughter.)MR OBRIEN: Via video. Statistic-wise, just important to reference Matts indication that this will grow, we had and we did the first one last year in 2014 we had 18 applications. This year, I think we had at least 50.MR SWIFT: Fifty-two.MR OBRIEN: Fifty-two.MR LOGOTHETIS: Read off some of the names. I mean --MR SWIFT: We have Chevron, Dow, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wal-Mart, Save the Children, Unilever, Nike, Discovery Education, Walt Disney Company, Yale University, the Nature Conservancy, TechnoServe, RAIN, USAID, Microsoft. All were applicants in some form, those partnerships.QUESTION: Was there a theme of this years competition? Is it about water or --MR OBRIEN: No.QUESTION: Just any --MR OBRIEN: We look at I mean, anybody in the partnership space can apply. We had a whole range health and sanitation, environment, education, technology, public safety, economic development. We had applications from across the board. MR KREHMEYER: Whats interesting to me about the names of the organizations that you read, Matt, is and encouraging to me is that these are leading global organizations. These are organizations with yes, deep resources, both financial and capability leadership skill-wise, and a lot of demands on those resources. And yet one of the important priorities that they place at the head of this list is their engagement in these public-private partnerships, which I think reinforces some of the points were making here is to see these leading organizations, its in a lot of ways we get some, I think, intangible benefit because we actually get to read through all these and really see the exciting things going on in the world of public-private partnerships.QUESTION: In the light of this something just came to mind with the recent recall of 11 million cars by Volkswagen is that the news, something to that effect, they have recalled --MR SWIFT: I think its 17.QUESTION: How many?MR OBRIEN: Its more than 11.MR SWIFT: I think its 17 --MR OBRIEN: Seventeen --MR SWIFT: -- as of today.QUESTION: Anyone comment on that quickly?MR OBRIEN: I dont I actually dont know enough about the issue. QUESTION: So okay. MODERATOR: So I think were just about out of time unless I see a hand raised, one more question or so? Well, if --MR OBRIEN: Thank you.MODERATOR: -- there are no more questions, everyone, thank you all very much.MR OBRIEN: No, thats very great. Thank you very much.MR SWIFT: Thank you all for coming.MR LOGOTHETIS: Thank you.MODERATOR: Todays briefing was on the record and our transcript will be posted as soon as its ready at fpc.state.gov, and that concludes todays briefing. Thank you so much.###WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2015, 3:00 P.M. EDTNEW YORK FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, 799 UNITED NATIONS PLAZA, 10TH FLOOR
U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR THE GREAT LAKES REGION OF AFRICA THOMAS PERRIELLO AND U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR THE GREAT LAKES REGION OF AFRICA SAID DJINNITMODERATOR: Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. Welcome to the New York Foreign Press Center. My name is Monica Shie. Im very honored today to have the U.S. special envoy and the UN special envoy for the Great Lakes region of Africa. We have Special Envoy Thomas Perriello and Special Envoy Said Djinnit. We also have with us today Stephen Hayes, who is seated over here. He is the president and CEO for the Corporate Council on Africa. He will give remarks as well. And Im going to turn it over to Bernadette Paolo, who will open up. This is an on-the-record briefing. We have a DVC with Washington as well. And at the end of the remarks, I would ask that if you have questions that you stand up and state your name and your news media organization, or for those of you who are not journalists, the organization that you represent here.Thank you so much for coming. Im going to turn this over to Bernadette.MS PAOLO: Thank you very much, Monica. Good afternoon. As you know, my name is Bernadette Paolo. I would like our special envoys to have a seat, if you will. Im pleased to welcome you to this overview and discussion on conflict and democracy and development in the Great Lakes region. We have a unique opportunity this afternoon to hear from both the United States special envoy, as you heard, and the UN special envoy, in addition to benefitting from the views later of Mr. Modibo Toure, assistant secretary-general and special advisor to the Great Lakes region. We also have an expert here with us today in trade and investment in Mr. Stephen Hayes, president and CEO of the Corporate Council on Africa, who will serve as moderator and provide comments as well. I want to commend the Department of State for convening this program, in particular Ms. Nicole Peacock, who is an excellent representative and partner for people from all different sectors. And this is a key moment in time for the Great Lakes region.My opening remarks are predicated on my experience of having been on Capitol Hill on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for 10 years, and my present capacity as president and CEO of the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa, so Ive been in civil society for 17 years.The international community and the United States have come a long way in how they address situations in foreign countries. It is far more comprehensive approach that understands the linkages between conflict and the lack of democracy and equity, economic disparity, and the need to create opportunities for all segments of society, and the realization that in order to facilitate change, all actors must be fully engaged, including civil society. It used to be 20 to 25 years ago on Capitol Hill that the topics we are addressing today would never be dealt with during the course of the
but he actually began his career working in a refugee camp in the Middle East in the 60s and was involved in a lot of international organizations such as the YMCA. He during his 15 years has built up CCA and can give you really good, good accounting of whats happened with our private sector.In closing then, I wish to quote the words of our President from his speech at the United Nations. We, the nations of the world, cannot return to the old ways of conflict and coercion. We cannot look backwards. We live in an integrated world, one in which we all have a stake in each others success.Gentlemen, we thank each of you for your service and look forward to hearing your comments and recommendations. Thank you very much. (Applause.)MR HAYES: Thank you, Bernadette. We do go back a long, long way. I think all of you are here to really hear the special envoys, as I am as well, but let me just give you a quick context on why I think Im here. The Corporate Council on Africa is the largest U.S. organization in terms of doing business with Africa; 85 percent of business with Africa from the United States is represented in our membership. We also do more trade missions to Africa every year than any organization in the country, bar none. And we have about 180 companies, now about 20 percent of those are African companies.And to set the stage for this, we have weve also sent trade missions to nine of the 12 countries in the Great Lakes coalition, or I should say the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region. We were asked about two years ago to participate in the planning for an international donors an international investment conference on the Great Lakes area. We were asked by Mr. Touray at the UN. We said that we would participate. Senator Feingold, then the special envoy, also asked us. And the as bureaucracies happened, this really didnt come through. It was in my view premature, and apparently it was premature to others. Therefore we were asked then to wait our turn then until it was ready to start back up, and I think thats the reason that I was asked to be here today. We stand ready to help. We have a Congo working group. There are one of our members, Freeport-McMoRan, is the largest investor in the region by far, and certainly in the DRC. And so there are there is member interest. There are challenges, significant challenges, and I think thats why you need here the special envoys. But there is an investment conference planned now in February. We have said that we again would stand by ready to help from the private sector. I think theres been too little dialogue between the public and the private sector, and in fact, investment is probably the key to changing the situation and economic development, changing the situation in the Great Lakes region. So we are standing by to be one of others,