Startup America Policy Challenge

About the Challenge

Background

Startup America is the White House initiative to celebrate, inspire, and accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship throughout the nation.

Startups are engines of job creation.  Entrepreneurs intent on growing their businesses create the lion’s share of new jobs, in every part of the country and in every industry.  President Obama has called on both the federal government and the private sector to dramatically increase the prevalence and success of entrepreneurs across the country.

The Obama Administration is taking concrete actions to improve the environment for high-growth entrepreneurship, in five key areas:

1. Unlocking access to capital for high-growth companies;
2. Connecting mentors to entrepreneurs;
3. Reducing barriers and making government work for entrepreneurs;
4. Accelerating innovation from lab to market for federally funded R&D; and
5. Unleashing market opportunities in industries like healthcare IT, clean energy, and learning technologies.  (That’s where you come in…)

For more information about Startup America, visit www.whitehouse.gov/startupamerica.

The Challenge

In the spirit of the Obama Administration’s commitment to open and participatory government, the White House is announcing the Startup America Policy Challenge in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of Education.

Major transformations are underway in the U.S. economy, opening up unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurs:

• Education is shifting from paper to digital.
• Energy is shifting from dirty to clean.
• Healthcare is shifting from volume to value.

How do we get there faster?

A lot of entrepreneurs have an idea about how the federal government could help knock down some of the barriers they face every day.  But they probably don’t have time to translate this idea into a rigorous policy proposal – after all, they’ve got businesses to run.

Meanwhile, other members of the public, including students, have time to do that research.  But they may not know what barriers are most important.

Enter the Startup America Policy Challenge:  President Obama’s Administration will ask entrepreneurs and the American public how to knock down barriers to innovation in healthcare IT, clean energy, and learning technologies. Entrepreneurs and other members of the public will post their ideas online. The public, including students and other solvers, will be invited to translate the best ideas into "Policy Business Plans," which will be shared with President Obama's Cabinet.

How to Participate

Phase I: Entrepreneurs and others: Post your response to the White House and Cabinet Secretaries:

http://www.quora.com/Aneesh-Chopra-1/Startup-America-Policy-Challenge-We-Want-to-Hear-from-You

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/12/12/startup-america-policy-challenge-learning-technologies

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/12/13/startup-america-policy-challenge-clean-energy-0

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/12/16/breaking-down-barriers-health-it-through-entrepreneurship

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/01/06/we-want-hear-you-quora-annnouncing-strartup-america-policy-challenge

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/01/06/america-s-ideas-support-entrepreneurship-education-energy-and-health-care

Phase II: Help turn America's ideas into a "Policy Business Plan" and compete to be the best!  Consistent with the Startup America Policy Challenge, a network of universities (http://policychallenge.asu.edu/) has decided to analyze the issues posed by the Cabinet Secretaries.  These universities made the responses from Phase I available to students and solvers across the country.  Solver teams chose an idea and developed detailed "Policy Business Plans" for Federal government action.  Read this blog post for more about the finalists and winning proposals:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/06/01/startup-america-policy-challenge-tapping-citizen-solvers-drive-innovation