Stepping up: Silicon Valley Partnership: The Innovators Fund

OK, the deal is that our country is about helping others out in a culture of trust and generosity. I'm thinking like the Marshall Plan of 60 years ago, a great expression of shared values that also prevented a lot of extremism and built markets.

Me personally, I feel that we should be that "shining city on the hill."

Here's a new first step in that direction, with some very minor involvement from me. I'm guessing my focus will be on the evolution of large-scale grassroots involvement via social media.

The Department of State has entered in a non-exclusive partnership with The Innovators Fund (IF), a new Silicon-Valley based venture capital fund that will launch in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Russia and Malaysia.

The Innovators Fund is being launched in part as a result of President Obama’s June 2009 Cairo speech and its call to action, and in part as a result of a discussion that Secretary Clinton had with leading U.S. technology entrepreneurs and innovators at the Department of State in January 2010, in which the IF’s Founder participated.

IF will collaborate with a number of existing funds and raise a series of country-focused seed Funds that will provide angel and seed financing and mentorship to promising young entrepreneurs. It will have a strong emphasis on mentorship and will send leading Silicon Valley executives to the countries in which it will operate to provide intensive mentoring as well as continued online mentoring and collaboration.