Educating the Next Generation of Global Leaders: #MeridianSummit

Posted under: Center for Global Leadership By /

Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken gives remarks to the Meridian Global Leadership Summit. Photo Credit: Joyce Boghosian

I am so incredibly lucky. I was born in America in a prosperous time to parents that not only valued my education, but had the time, resources, and capacity to be fully engaged. They sacrificed to send me to private schools, staying up until all my homework was done and explaining difficult concepts until they wanted to pull their hair out. But they did so I would have as many opportunities as possible. They poured their all into my education and in turn, gave me an impassioned outlook on my future. That is why I cannot get Deputy Secretary...

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Program Theme Spotlight: Foreign Trade and investment

Posted under: IVLP By /

Three visitors at a family-owned “pop-up” camper business in Sacramento, where they discuss the with the owners the company’s global marketing strategy.

With the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other pending trade agreements in the headlines, and as states across the country compete with one another for foreign investment and global export markets, IVLP projects in these fields are on the rise.  The increase of projects on this theme is a reflection of U.S. foreign policy interests and a recognition that global commerce has an impact on a myriad of domestic policy issues. In preparing proposals for projects about trade and investment, Meridian and its implementing partners consider a number of policy priorities that are affected by the globalization of commerce.

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Beyond the Beltway: Transatlantic Trade

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Amb Michael Froman, US Trade Representative, discusses TTIP with a group of European Parliament staffers

Trade has been in the news lately, and it’s as controversial as ever. With Congress’s recent granting of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA, which allows Congress to vote yes or no on a final negotiated agreement but without adding any amendments) to President Obama, negotiators have been hard at work finalizing the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed free trade agreement between the US and many Pacific Rim nations, as well as making progress on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP), which would create a free trade area between the world’s two largest economies, the United States and the...

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It’s all about the Spirit: Meridian Social Innovation Fellows in Detroit

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The Fellows with Jacques Panis and the Blanchards at Shinola in Detroit

By Meridian Social Innovation Fellow Javier Garcia Rodrigo   “Why Detroit?” my colleague Alberto Di Minin asked Jacques Panis, president of Shinola, the company that symbolizes one of the great success stories of business in the recent history of the formerly glorious city of Detroit. “In principle,” Alberto followed, “there should be more interesting locations across the US to establish a business, right?” Listening carefully, Mr. Panis answered without hesitation: “The People,” he told us. “Actually, it’s not what we are doing for the city; it is what the city is doing for us,” he added, under the watchful...

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US Embassy in Madrid Highlights Meridian Social Innovation Fellows

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Meridian Social Innovation Fellows

 In the US Embassy in Madrid‘s May 2015 e-newsletter on entrepreneurship, Adriana Brito Ruiz, Youth Embassy Council Member, interviewed Meridian Social Innovation Fellows Javier and Cristina on their social innovation projects. The following are excerpts from these interviews, translated into English by Meridian Program Associate Eirene O’Connor. If you would like to read the interviews in their entirety, please email Eirene at eoconnor@meridian.org On May 4, 2015, Meridian welcomed the inaugural cohort of the Meridian Social Innovation Fellowship to Washington, D.C. The eight Fellows – who hail from Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain – are global problem-solvers who bring...

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