Entrepreneurs are a powerful economic force. They create jobs, grow businesses, and develop the innovations on which America thrives. In order to enable entrepreneurs to thrive, the Administration is committed to reducing barriers to entrepreneurial success. On January 31, 2011 President Obama announced the launch of the Startup America initiative to celebrate, inspire, and accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship throughout the nation. As part of the Administration’s commitment to hear and learn from the public, this Startup America: Reducing Barriers panel asks you to join senior Administration officials and high-growth entrepreneurs to discuss the regulatory reforms, reductions and improvements that could be enacted to help high-growth entrepreneurs grow in our country.
Aaron K. ("Ronnie") Chatterji is currently serving as a Senior Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) where he focuses on entrepreneurship, small business and innovation policy. Professor Chatterji is on leave from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business where he is an Associate Professor of Strategy. His work investigates some of the most important forces shaping our global economy and society: entrepreneurship, innovation, and the expanding social mission of business. He is especially interested in the fluid boundaries between government and business, and how public policies interact with the activities of responsible companies, social entrepreneurs, and creative customers.
Professor Chatterji has been an advisor for Duke's Program for Entrepreneurs and Duke Engage; a board member for Durham Community in Schools and an entrepreneurship teacher at a Durham public high school; and a Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He has testified as an expert witness at the House Committee on Small Business and the U.S. Department of State. His work has been cited by CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, and he was recently profiled in Fortune. He has authored opinion pieces in The Washington Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Raleigh News and Observer and has appeared on television and radio. Professor Chatterji also received an inaugural Junior Faculty Fellowship from the Kauffman Foundation to recognize his work as a leading scholar in entrepreneurship. He holds a PhD from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.
Aneesh Chopra is the Chief Technology Officer and in this role serves as an Assistant to the President and Associate Director for Technology within the Office of Science & Technology Policy. He works to advance the President’s technology agenda by fostering new ideas and encouraging government-wide c oordination to help the country meet its goals from job creation, to reducing health care costs, to protecting the homeland.
Aneesh was sworn in on May 22nd, 2009. Prior to his appointment, he served as the fourth Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia from January 2006 until April 2009. Prior to his appointment by then-Governor Timothy M. Kaine, he served as Managing Director with the Advisory Board Company, a publicly-traded healthcare think tank. Chopra was named to Government Technology magazine’s Top 25 in their Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers issue in 2008. Aneesh Chopra received his B.A. from The Johns Hopkins University and his M.P.P. from Harvard’s Kennedy School. He and his wife Rohini have two young children.
Timothy "Scott" Case is a technologist, entrepreneur and inventor and was co-founder of Priceline, the "Name Your Own Price" company that was one of only a handful of startups in US history to reach a billion dollars in annual sales in less than 24 months. As Chief Technology Officer, he was responsible for building the technology that enabled Priceline’s hyper-growth.
Most recently, Scott was named CEO and to the Board of the Startup America Partnership, where he’ll invest his energy to drive American entrepreneurship to create jobs and sustain our nation's global leadership.
Prior to joining the Startup America Partnership, Scott served as CEO of Malaria No More, where he worked to inspire individuals and institutions in the private sector to end deaths caused by malaria. Previously, Scott helped build a portfolio of intellectual property at the Walker Digital Invention Laboratory, and is a named inventor on dozens of U.S. patents including the underlying portfolio for Priceline. Scott also co-founded Precision Training Software, a software company that developed the world's first PC-based simulated flight instructor and photo-real istic flight simulator.
Scott serves as the Chairman of Network for Good, a national nonprofit that has distributed more than $475 million to 60,000 nonprofits and provides online fundraising and communications services to over 5,000 nonprofit organizations. He is also on the Advisory Board of By Kids for Kids, Tickets-for-Charity and ThreeJars.
Sean Greene is the Associate Administrator for Investment, and Special Adviser for Innovation at the U.S. Small Business Administration. He brings 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur, investor, and business strategist to the SBA. He was the founder and CEO of Away.com, an online travel company that he sold to Orbitz. He was also a Co Founder of Rock Creek Ventures and LaunchBox Digital, a seed‐stage investment firm in Washington DC. Previously Greene was a management consultant with McKinsey and Co. G reene holds an AB from Princeton University, an MBA from Yale’s School of Management, and also was a Fulbright Scholar at the National University of Singapore.
Todd Park joined HHS as Chief Technology Officer in August 2009. In this role, he is responsible for helping HHS leadership harness the power of data, technology, and innovation to improve the health and welfare of the nation. Mr. Park co-founded Athenahealth in 1997 and co-led its development over the following decade into one of the most innovative, socially-oriented, and successful health information technology companies in the industry. Prior to Athenahealth, he served as a management consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton, focusing on health care strategy, technology, and operations. Mr. Park has also served in a volunteer capacity as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he focused on health IT and health reform policy, and as senior health care advisor to Ashoka, a leading global incubator of social entrepreneurs, where he helped start a venture to bring affordable telehealth, drugs, diagnostics, and clean water to rural India. Mr. Park graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College with an A.B. in economics.
