One year ago this month, Internet bookselling giant Amazon announced a landmark in the growth of e-books: the company's sales of e-books had for the first time exceeded its sales of printed books. This event is only one of many indications that the age of the e-book has arrived. Sales of mobile tablet and e-reader devices have skyrocketed. E-books are being adopted in classrooms and libraries across the United States. Printed books are not going away anytime soon, but e-books are here to stay. E-books also have great potential to transform government publishing, making the publications so critical to taxpayers' lives and the smooth functioning of our democracy freely accessible in the best new formats for reading.
Recognizing this trend and growing demand from its readers, the Office of the Historian began an e-book initiative in March, and today is releasing 12 more… more »
I stepped onto South American soil for the first time to participate in TechCamp Lima, the tenth such TechCamp. TechCamps are the pillar of Secretary Clinton's Civil Society 2.0 initiative and organized and run by the Secretary's Innovation team and the Office of eDiplomacy in close collaboration with local embassies.
Perched cliff-side, bustling Lima crouches over the Pacific teeming with a third of Peru's population. An incredibly diverse country, Peruvians point out its three major regions: coast, sierra, and jungle, each with starkly contrasting histories and culture. The NGOs participating in TechCamp Lima work in many sectors. However, they share the broader goal of bridging Peru's differences… more »
Today, join Ambassador Susan E. Rice and New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof as they break ground on the frontier of social media and U.S. foreign policy. In a live Google+ Hangout, Ambassador Rice and Mr. Kristof will discuss the world's most pressing challenges and America's role in an increasingly interconnected world. They will be joined live by a selection of citizens who will ask questions from the U.S. and overseas.
Next week I am going to a meeting in Switzerland for SESAME, which I happen to think is the most exciting and revolutionary scientific undertaking that practically nobody outside of the scientific community has ever heard of.
What is it and why do I think it is so radical and so important?
The first question is easy.
SESAME actually stands for 'Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East' and will be the region's first major multi-country scientific research center. It's being developed under the auspices of UNESCO and is scheduled to open fully in Jordan in 2015. When it is completed, SESAME will be the Middle East's only source of so-called "high intensity synchrotron X-rays," key building blocks for research into biology,… more »
In the last week, I've travelled from Johannesburg to Cape Town to Addis Ababa. Along the way, I've been struck over and over again by the ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and innovation of the people I have met -- from townships to capital cities, from villages to major metropolises. Innovation parks are taking a place next to factories, investment banks next to mobile phone banking kiosks, and internet startups next to mom-and-pop store fronts. As I touched down in Ethiopia for the World Economic Forum on Africa, I was struck by the thought: Africa is emerging.
Buoyed by a decade of growth and bullish predictions for the future, Africa is on track to become the next big investment destination. The Economist indicates that six of the… more »
Joining a global group of now more than 800 organizations, TechCamps Tel Aviv and Ramallah represented the eighth and ninth TechCamps coordinated under Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's Civil Society 2.0 initiative. These TechCamps brought together three areas of focus for Secretary Clinton: strengthening civil society, innovation, and empowering women and girls. American and international trainers from companies, such as Facebook, Meetup, and Yahoo!, teamed together with the State Department's Office of Innovation and eDiplomacy to help raise the digital literacy of civil society organizations focused on women's empowerment though separate, intensive two-day workshops.
Each TechCamp focused on how to help ensure women and girls have the know-how and education… more »
On May 7-8, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to India, making stops in Kolkata and New Delhi. While in India, Secretary Clinton met with state officials and other civil society organization representatives and spoke with Embassy New Delhi staff. She also met with Indian Government officials to review progress in the strategic partnership, looking forward to the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue to be held in Washington, D.C. on June 13 and… more »
How donor grants may unlock billions of investment dollars for impact enterprise.
In 2010, JP Morgan released a figure that shocked the investment industry: the group estimated that the potential capital market for impact investing -- putting dollars into enterprises that would deliver positive social impact -- was between $400 billion and $1 trillion. Buoyed by the success of the microfinance revolution, philanthropists, governments, entrepreneurs and investors began in earnest to see how else they could do well by doing good.
Impact investors have surged forward with capital, ready to support the pioneering entrepreneurs creating fortunes and development gains at the base of the pyramid (BoP). There are now 200 impact investment entities poised to pour billions of dollars into impact enterprises in the next year. They have cast wide nets, but it… more »
Today, we celebrate the contributions of scientists and innovators such as Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell. We recognize the writings of Jonathan Franzen, architectural designs of I. M. Pei, movies of Steven Spielberg, and many others like them whose works have changed the way we view our world and live our lives. Why today? Because April 26 marks World Intellectual Property Day, the annual celebration commemorating the formation of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1970.
This year's theme -- visionary innovators -- recognizes the unique and valuable contributions made by gifted individuals all over the world. Without innovation, civilizations remain static. The economist Robert Solow was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1987 for showing that technological innovation was responsible for over 80 percent of economic growth in the United… more »
With the global shortage of skilled professionals in Information and Communication Technology, or ICT, why are so few girls pursuing careers in this lucrative and fast-growing field? This is not only a question of equal opportunity, but one of economic necessity. We will not be able to compete effectively in the increasingly global and technologically sophisticated economy if we do not harness the full human potential of all our people.
Today, we are pleased to be joining the ITU (International Telecommunications Union, a United Nations agency) in celebrating Girls in ICT Day. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues, Melanne Verveer, will be joining UN Women Executive Director, Michelle Bachelet, and many others in New York City today to discuss ways we can encourage young women around the world to play a greater role in the technology revolution. By raising the… more »
May 23: The State Department, through its office of the U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), is pleased to announce $1.5 million in funding to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to support open governance and political participation in the Middle East and North Africa. more »
May 23: Today, Russia was invited to join the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) at a ceremony hosted by its parent body, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris. ã more »
![Image of Foreign Relations of the United States books available electronically on a mobile device, as seen on March 23, 2012. [State Department image]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0523_frus_screenshot_m.jpg)
![Technologists and representatives of NGOs pose for a group photo at the end of the second day of TechCamp Lima. [U.S. Embassy Lima/ Public Domain]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0518_techcamp_lima_m.jpg)
![U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice speaks to reporters after a Security Council meeting on March 16, 2011, at UN headquarters in New York. [AP File Photo]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2011_0810_rice_un_stakeout_m.jpg)
![In this photo taken, Nov. 8, 2011, a woman poses with her Blackberry mobile phone in Johannesburg. The woman says she cherishes her phone as a link to family and friends, and also sees it as a radio, a library, a mini cinema, a bank teller, and more. [AP File Photo]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0510_africa_innovation_m.jpg)
![Elizabeth Linder of Facebook holds a discussion with TechCamp participants in Ramallah, May 2, 2012. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0509_techcamp_ramallah_m.jpg)
![Special Representative for Global Partnerships Kris Balderston introduces U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the first-ever Global Impact Economy Forum at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on April 26, 2012. [State Department photo by Ben Chang/ Public Domain]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0426_clinton_balderston_m.jpg)
![A photo taken at the University of Michigan shows a “responsive envelope system prototype,” a model for a structure that would be used in a building's exterior as part of a system to reduce its external power use and carbon footprint, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2011. [AP File Photo]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0426_innovation_michigan_m.jpg)
![Woman coaches girls as they prepare to reassemble the components of desktop computer at the Children's Aid Society East Harlem Boys & Girls Club on Dec. 6, 2011 in New York. [AP File Photo]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0427_tech_girls_m.jpg)
