#Innovation

Introducing…..the Spaso House Innovation Series

I’m very proud to announce this exciting new series of events focusing on innovation. We call it the Spaso House Innovation Series.

Our Mission: Facilitating connections, creating opportunity, and sharing ideas on how to increase the competitiveness of our innovative communities.

Our Concept: The U.S. Embassy and Skolkovo Foundation will host a series of lectures and events on the theme of innovation. The idea is to use my residence, Spaso House, to bring together opinion makers/shapers, young people, entrepreneurs, and government officials to discuss global trends and hot topics in innovation. The focus will be on creating a core group of participants who can use the Series to deepen their connection with each other, with U.S. innovators and build a deeper knowledge of the innovation process.

Mutual interests: Innovative ecosystems are global in scope. With today’s telecommunications infrastructure, ideas naturally transcend national boundaries. The Spaso Innovation Series provides a forum to discuss global trends in innovation between U.S. thought leaders and Russia’s emergent innovation class. The discussions aim to tap into the tremendous wealth of knowledge in both communities and to enrich and strengthen the ideas of participants through active socialization of ideas and debate. The Series should also facilitate business connections and potential opportunities.

Topics: The topics will highlight the great debates or global trends in innovation. We held our first event on September 12. World re-nowned innovation lecturer and consultant John Kao was our guest speaker. Drawing on his tremendous skills as a jazz pianist, John illustrated the relationship between the innovative process and interpretative jazz piano. 

Other topics will include: global entrepreneurship, innovative communication for the 21^st century, the influence of design on innovation, the lean start-up movement, and other topics.  

If you have additional ideas for topics, please send them to me at AmbMcFaul@gmail.com.

Sincerely,



Michael McFaul
Ambassador

Website Links on Innovation

• Innovation Working Group of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission

Silicon Valley, a term first coined in 1971 to describe the geographical area in California known for the production of silicon microchips, is now synonymous with the U.S. technological industry. The region, comprising the Santa Clara Valley to the south of San Francisco, is home to tech-industry heavy weights such as Apple, Google, eBay, Facebook and many others. For news about Silicon Valley companies, check out (need weblink).

John Kao

• Jamming.com
• John Kao: The New Geography of Innovation (Fora.tv Video)
• John Kao on the Kolbert Report
• Huffington Post about John Kao
• John Kao's interview with Vedomosti (in Russian)

Resources

• U.S.-Russia Innovation Working Group
• Start-up America
• Skolkovo
• Rusnano
• Kauffman Foundation
• Digital October
• Lean-Start Up
• U.S. Dept of Commerce site on Innovation
• State Department’s Global Entrepreneurship Program
• Dept of Commerce’s cluster mapping site
• Silicon Valley News
• Stanford Research Park (Palo Alto, California)
• Research Triangle Park (Raleigh, North Carolina)
• Cummings Research Park (Huntsville, Alabama)
• Purdue Research Park (West Lafayette, IN)