I received an email yesterday from Megan Smith and Doug Rand of the White House Office of Science and Technology (one of those mass-mailings), regarding “White House Demo Day.”
They’re inviting a bunch of
“entrepreneurs from all across the country — including those underrepresented in entrepreneurship like women and people of color — to come here and talk about their big ideas and share the stories of their individual innovation journeys to date. These are the folks whose stories show exactly why we need to grow the pie to make sure there’s opportunity for everyone in our innovation economy.”
The WHOST letter asked for nominations of people to participate. The opportunity was ripe for response.
Coincidentally, I also received a presser from Bernie Sanders’ office containing his letter to the President objecting to efforts to ‘fast track’ the Trans-Pacific Partnership without sufficient opportunity for review and response by those most affected, a.k.a: working Americans.
In that letter, the Senator raises some excellent questions that beg answers before the public.
They speak to issues of minimum wage, product safety, legal protections, and corporate manipulation of the pharmaceutical development and distribution process which could cause widespread threats to public health.
I suggest you take the time to read those questions in detail, because we are once again being led down that same garden path that delivered us to NAFTA hell.
Which brings me to my response to the White House Mailing (a copy of which I also sent to Senator Sanders).
In it, I told the story of my family’s modest foray into bootstrap business development; how the banking system failed us; and how, just when we had finally gotten things going strong with no help from anyone, NAFTA and corporate heavy hitters came along to steal our market and knock us on our entrepreneurial asses.
They asked, and I answered. You can read the whole thing in ‘comments’, should you be out of cornflakes boxes and have an afternoon to kill.
Stay tuned to learn whether or not I ever get any feedback.
(Please forgive the html anomalies that I don’t have time now to address)