The third annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit took place this week in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.). The conference featured opening remarks by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President of the U.A.E. and Ruler of Dubai, a video message from United States President Barack Obama, and remarks from senior U.S. and U.A.E. government officials representing agencies supporting the conference.
The two-day summit boasted an impressive speaker faculty of over 90 experts and attracted thousands of global policy-makers, thought leaders, and entrepreneurs. Keynote speeches, breakout sessions, and events were broadcast live on Twitter throughout the conference using #GES_EVA.
For your reference, a transcription of President Obama’s message can be found below with a link to the original video.
President Obama’s Message to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit
11 December 2012
Office of the Press Secretary
The White House
(As transcribed by Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hello, everyone, and thank you to the President of the United Arab Emirates, as well as your gracious host, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the U.A.E.
It’s fitting that you meet in Dubai, a city that speaks to what’s possible when people of vision and imagination can pursue their dreams.
Three years ago in Cairo, I called for new partnerships between the United States and Muslim communities around the world, to strengthen the bonds between our peoples and to focus on what matters most in our daily lives.
Since then, we’ve come together to foster economic development, to promote health, especially for women and children, and to advance the work that brings you here today: the entrepreneurship that creates jobs and opportunity.
Since the first summit I hosted in Washington, we’ve made real progress, training thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs with the skills they need to create new start-ups, helping small businesses expand and hire more workers, mobilizing new investments and expanding access to capital, empowering people — especially women and girls — in science and technology, and increasing exchange programs for our young people, the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
This work is even more important given the extraordinary changes across the Middle East and North Africa. People are not only seeking the chance to forge their own future; they’re seeking the same jobs and prosperity enjoyed by people around the world. And just as democratic revolutions can be triggered by a lack of opportunity, democratic progress will depend on economic growth that is broad and sustained, and that demands entrepreneurs.
Here in Dubai, let’s keep creating the next generation of dreamers, and creators, and builders. Let’s close the skills gap with education that truly prepares our children for the jobs of the future. Let’s help entrepreneurs harness the latest technology to build new networks of cooperation. Let’s make it even easier to access capital.
In short, let’s keep doing everything we can to help that aspiring entrepreneur turn her idea into a business that could change her neighborhood, her city, or her country.
So thank you for being a part of this effort. This is one of those challenges that none of us can meet alone. It has to be governments, the private sector, academia, NGOs, all of us working together. I’m confident we can, and that together we can strengthen the ties that bind us as peoples, and we can give our citizens the opportunity and dignity they deserve.
Have a great summit, everybody.
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To view the original video address on The White House’s website, visit: http://ow.ly/g3cfM
