2016 AAAS Annual Meeting (February 11-15, 2016)

February 10 - 15, 2016

Promoting Global Science, Technology, and Innovation Entrepreneurship: Best Practices

Science and technology (S&T) entrepreneurship revolutionizes the way we live, improving quality of life, creating economic opportunities and jobs, and addressing critical needs around the globe with innovative solutions. Empowering people to become entrepreneurs, especially youth and women, is critical. Identifying and mentoring innovators worldwide is a significant challenge, requiring a working knowledge of existing best practices. In response to this challenge, the public-private partnership GIST (Global Innovation through Science and Technology) is enabling young innovators to succeed by providing mentoring, networking, skill-building, and access to financing. Since 2011, GIST has engaged with more than 2.8 million S&T innovators and entrepreneurs worldwide, in areas such as agriculture, biomedical devices, energy, and information communication technology. The success of GIST comes from private partners, who provide practical input from their personal experiences stimulating S&T entrepreneurship globally. In this session, a panel of GIST partners discusses lessons learned from their in-country efforts to further S&T entrepreneurship, the need for data-driven engagement strategies, the benefit of working with private-public partnerships, and their perspectives on the future of global engagement in S&T entrepreneurship.