Core Mission

The mission of Open Economies is to support developing nations as they embrace digital technology and digitally-enabled entrepreneurship as a means to economic and social development. We focus on understanding and working with others to create policy, legal, regulatory, and fiscal conditions that encourage digital entrepreneurship and development. Open Economies' guiding conviction is that digital entrepreneurship is vital to accelerating economic growth and alleviating poverty, as well as to promoting democracy and social inclusion.

Premises

Leaders from all sectors -- government, business, and non-profits -- in developing countries are creating policy, legal, regulatory, and fiscal conditions to encourage these technology-rich businesses. Those of us in the industrialized nations can help in a variety of ways, and need to seize the opportunity.

It is of critical importance that nations become innovators in the world economy, that nations find distinctive ways to contribute one to another. We believe that digital strategy and innovation strategy are and should be intertwined.

Actions

We bring together academic, business, government, and non-profit organizations and leaders to collaborate on advancing development goals.

Creative activities occur in four areas:

First, in order to better understand the needs of entrepreneurs, we carry out case studies in conjunction with specific businesses seeking to expand in knowledge-based, information and communications-intensive markets. These case studies are directed by the Open Economies Legal Director.

Second, in order to better understand the needs of policy makers, we carry out case studies on public policy. These cases provide a valuable resource to those involved in policy, whether government ministers, business leaders, or leaders representing other aspects of civil society. These case studies are directed by the Open Economies Policy Director.

Third, we are deeply committed to the process of "cross-sectoral" collaboration, especially between non-profits, businesses, and government. We believe that many of the most creative solutions to development challenges occur when people from different backgrounds come together in dialogue and shared action. As such, Open Economies not only works at the multilateral level, and is an official participant in the Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force) of the G-8 Group of Nations and the United Nations Information and Communications Task Force, but we also work at the regional and local levels and collaborate with organizations such as Bridges.org, an NGO active in Southern Africa, and Geekcorps, a U.S.-based non-profit organization that pairs volunteers from the high-tech world with small businesses in emerging nations.

Fourth, we are active in Internet and media communications. Our goal is to promote cooperation in bridging the digital divide, engage a breadth of people in dialogue about law and public policy -- and provide a platform for shared learning about the broader issues of "digital culture" raised by the worldwide spread of information and communication technologies.