Partners for a New Beginning wants to congratulate the Steering Committee, Local Chapters and Members-at-Large for their focused commitments announced at the PNB Summit this week.
Brown University
Brown has committed to driving the Heritage as Bridge (HaB) project, an initiative promoting and developing the educational and economic benefits of cultural heritage sites. The project is currently working with the magnificent and diverse archaeological resources of Turkey, with an emphasis on activities in nine cultural development zones identified and highlighted by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, but will provide models of use in other countries involved with PNB partnerships.
Case Foundation
Steering Committee Member Jean Case, CEO of the CASE Foundation and founding co-chair of the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership, has committed to advancing the technology sector in the Palestinian Territories. Steve and Jean Case have been leading advocates in the fund, including making a significant personal investment in Sadara Ventures (Middle East Venture Capital Fund). Sadara Ventures announced it has secured $28.7M from leading international companies including Cisco, Google, The Soros Economic Development Fund, Skoll Foundation, and the European Investment Bank, among others. Sadara will invest in 12 startup companies in the Internet, mobile and software sectors created by ICT entrepreneurs in the West Bank, creating direct and indirect jobs.
Cisco
Cisco has commitment to invest $20 million dollars in the MENA region. Cisco has just announced two $10 million venture capital investments, one in Jordan and one in Egypt, that aim to create a sustainable model of job-creation and economic development in these two countries, with a particular focus on high-potential small businesses.
The Coca-Cola Company
Coca-Cola announced that it will dedicate $6 million to its Replenish Africa Initiative (RAIN) with a focus on water and sanitation projects designed to improve the lives of 250,000 women and girls across Africa, including Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. Coca-Cola has committed a total of $30 million to RAIN, which will provide access to safe drinking water and sanitation for at least 2 million people throughout Africa by 2015.
The Dow Chemical Company
As a Founding Partner of the Industrial Collaboration Program at the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, Dow has finalized a multi-year, multi-million dollar R&D Collaboration Agreement with the university that creates the Dow Middle East and Africa R&D Center, where research is currently underway to develop innovations that apply to the Water, Oil & Gas, and Infrastructure industries of Saudi Arabia and the surrounding region
The Dow MEAF R&D Center at KAUST will also provide funding to educate and train Saudi citizens and to also support student research challenge competitions on KAUST’s campus.
ExxonMobil Foundation
ExxonMobil is committed to expand access to education and leadership opportunities in Indonesia, with a focus on the country’s youth. In partnership with the Sampoerna Foundation, ExxonMobil has committed $3 million over the next 3 years to support long-term, high-impact programs to reach young people who need it most. The programs are designed to educate future leaders and position them to make a positive impact on the future of Indonesia.
Intel
Since the launch of PNB, Steering Committee member Intel has trained more than 250,000 teachers through the Intel Teach Program and has reached more than 55,000 students and learners through its Intel Learn Program in the PNB countries of Indonesia, Pakistan, Palestine, Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia.
Interfaith Youth Core
The Interfaith Youth Core commits to create a global network of interfaith leaders in the U.S. and Muslim countries over the next four years, training and equipping over 1,000 interfaith leaders this year alone who will bring together tens of thousands of their religiously diverse peers, in an effort to bridge the faith divide and provide thousands of volunteer hours in their communities. Contributing significantly to this commitment, IFYC has partnered with the Obama Administration in the development of the President’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge. The initiative invites institutions of higher education to commit to a year of interfaith cooperation and community service programming on campus, with the goal of increasing mutual understanding by fostering a global network of interfaith leaders.
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is committed to continue working with Orascom, a local partner in Egypt, in an effort to invest client capital across the Middle East and North Africa. This partnership is looking to invest in long-term infrastructure projects that will build better roads, provide more access to water, improve communications networks and ultimately help the people of the region grow their businesses, create jobs and deepen connections with the global economy.
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
The work of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund aligns with PNB’s objectives through two primary vehicles: the Peacebuilding Program, and an exploratory effort to support the forces for democracy and economic reform in Egypt. The Peacebuilding program supports efforts to transform conflict and advance just and durable peace, with a budget of $2.8 million for 2011. In addition, the RBF is requesting board approval for a multi-year commitment to support Egyptian civil society organizations working to ensure a successful transition to democratic governance.
The Arab American Institute
Following up on the White House Arab-American Business Roundtable on May 4, 2011, the Arab American Institute will build relationships among the business leaders who were in attendance (including CEOs, Presidents, and Executive Directors from major corporations and industries from across the country), PNB partners, and the US Government to create business opportunities that foster greater economic opportunity in the Arab World. As the only effort of its kind that seeks to leverage diaspora communities in support of the Arab Spring, Dr. James Zogby and Ahmed Chabani, Chairman of the Michigan Arab-American Chamber of Commerce, will convene this new network’s first meeting in July to encourage investment abroad at this critical time in the Arab World, while creating jobs in the United States as markets in the region open to new US investment.
Bamyan Media
Bamyan Media distributes and co-produces an original reality TV series that rewards the courage, initiative, and creativity of social entrepreneurs, while teaching the skills needed to start and manage a successful business. Launched in Afghanistan in 2008 with support from USAID, Bamyan harnesses the power of mass media to inspire a new generation of youth leaders. In 2011 in support of PNB, Bamyan intends to send a team to Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, and other countries in order to adapt and replicate its grass-roots approach. In collaboration with local partners, Bamyan will co-develop a turnkey package for TV networks in North Africa and the Middle-East and freely license the series, leveraging grant funding from sponsors, foundations and aid agencies to accelerate distribution across the region.
Craig Newmark
PNB member Craig Newmark, founder of the Craigslist Foundation and CraigConnects.org, has newly committed over $100,000.00 to provide internet connectivity for 17 vocational schools in the West Bank through a program spearheaded by Cisco, Inveneo, and USAID. In addition, Craig has partnered with MYTecC – the Mediterranean Youth Technology Club by committing $50,000.00 toward their creation of a human network which will support and enhance dialogue and web2.0-based exchange among youth from Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Israel, and Turkey.
IBM
Since 2008, IBM has sent 19 Corporate Service Corps (CSC) teams and almost 200 of its highest performers on pro bono assignments to Muslim-majority countries. Through this innovative program, IBM sends business and IT consultants to emerging markets to provide free consulting to local clients. In 2011 as part of PNB, IBM commits to extend their innovative Executive Service Corps to bring best practices to improve public service and drive local economic development in Jakarta, Istanbul and Cairo over the next 9 months. This investment of more than $1.2 million in business and IT consulting is in addition to ongoing Corporate Service Corps teams deployed across growth markets, including 7 Muslim Majority countries.
International Youth Foundation and The MasterCard Foundation
At least 90 percent of Egypt’s unemployed are between 15 and 29 years of age, despite the fact that this generation of youth is the most educated in the country’s history. To begin to address the challenges that young people face related to transitioning into the workforce, the International Youth Foundation (IYF) and The MasterCard Foundation have launched a new partnership, Egypt Works. This project will directly assist 10,000 Egyptian youth in increasing their employability skills, while supporting 4,000 young people to obtain jobs or start new businesses. Youth will also build networks and participate in learning exchanges that will help to take these programs to scale with the support of additional stakeholders. The MasterCard Foundation is providing $5 million towards the implementation of the partnership, while IYF provides overall management for the Egypt Works program. The project will be locally implemented by an Egyptian youth-led NGO, Nahdet El Mahrousa (NM).
New York Academy of Sciences
Working with the New York Academy of Sciences, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Najib has committed to the development of public/private partnerships that can make the nation a leader in “smart” cities and villages; maximize the benefit of its palm oil industry through biofuels, biochemicals, and new formulations of the oil itself; and transform the education system to inspire and empower the nation’s youth to be leaders in science, engineering and innovation.
PeacePlayers International
PeacePlayers International commits to scaling up its efforts to use sport to promote youth civic engagement, leadership development and conflict transformation in the Middle East and North Africa. With projects currently underway in Morocco and the West Bank, and partners including USAID, MEPI, AMIDEAST, Adidas, and the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, PPI is projected to launch a third program in Yemen in October 2011, and expects to double the scope of its work in the region by the end of 2012.
Sawari Ventures
Sawari Ventures’ vision is to drive growth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Middle East by providing risk capital to high-impact SME’s in the ICT sector. Sawari Ventures I is an early/growth-stage venture capital fund investing in Cairo, Alexandria, Amman and other technology hubs across the MENA region. With a current portfolio of 6 companies, Sawari expects to make investments in 20-30 companies, over the next 3-4 years.
Souktel
With close to two-thirds of the Arab World under age 25, millions of new job-seekers enter the labor market each year, only to sit unemployed and disenfranchised because they don‘t know where to find work. Souktel operates JobMatch services in West Bank/Gaza, Jordan, Morocco, Somalia and Kenya, with more than 22,000 job seekers and over 600 employers using its technology to find jobs/apprenticeships or qualified staff. In joining PNB, Souktel has launched JobMatch Egypt to connect job-seekers to employers through Souktel’s mobile-based JobMatch technology. In cooperation with PNB partners, Souktel will work with major corporations active in Egypt to improve their national hiring processes through innovative mobile technology solutions, while collaborating with Egyptian mobile operators on donations of SMS, voice, and connectivity services to match more jobseekers with jobs, career guidance, and workforce readiness training throughout Egypt.
SREN
The Strategic Regions Enterprise Network has committed to deliver business advisory services without charge to entrepreneurs and small/medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) located throughout the Muslim world. SREN has announced its first project, a medical lab to be built in Tikrit, Iraq by a prominent Iraqi doctor, which it looks to leverage using PNB’s regional networks.
Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding
Troubled by the escalation in anti-Muslim sentiment, the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding commits to creating and distributing materials by summer 2011 that promote workplace inclusion and encourage respectful communication about anti-Muslim sentiment and 9/11. To prepare global companies to work with multi-faith staff and customers here and abroad, Tanenbaum will create facilitation guidelines and fact sheets that dispel anti-Muslim stereotypes and outline religious beliefs and practices relevant to the global workplace.
Tomorrow’s Youth Organization
As a new member of PNB, Tomorrow’s Youth Organization (TYO) is developing an SMS-based information service for underprivileged Palestinian women, delivering invaluable health, parenting and financial literacy information to a target of 1,000 women in 2011 and upwards of 50,000 when the project goes to scale in 2012. This innovative approach to community education will build on TYO’s ongoing programs in women’s entrepreneurship, youth service learning and non-formal education, extending the organization’s reach far beyond the 250 women who participate in TYO programs annually. TYO’s on-ground presence and partnerships with SoukTel, PalTel and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, will ensure that the mobile program supplements face-to-face programs and services to exponentially increase its impact.
Tony Blair Faith Foundation
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation will be hosting consultations this summer in partnership with Charles Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum and a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, and the US Department of State as the Tony Blair Faith Foundation fulfills their PNB commitment to expand the reach of their “Face to Faith” global high school program to US schools, impacting 40,000 people in two years. Already active in 16 countries around the world, Face to Faith is a compelling school curriculum that engages students of different faiths and non-faith in meaningful inter and intra-faith dialogue, and encourages young people to recognize the similarities between faith, and more importantly to respect and deal with the differences between diverse and sometimes conflicting worldviews.
Turkish Philanthropy Funds
Turkish Philanthropy Funds (TPF) has announced that it will be working on a new program called “Yes She Can: Turkish Women and Turkish Girls.” UNICEF estimates that nearly one million girls do not attend primary school in Turkey, with only 18.7% making it to a higher education institute. Working in partnership with Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi (CYDD) and Turkcell, TPF will launch a mentorship platform that connects Turkish girls between the ages 12-21 to professional women in the United States, engaging at least 100 girls in its first year, and increase that number by 10% in the each following year, eventually reducing the number of girls not attending primary school down to half million by 2020, and to 300,000 by 2025.
University of the People
In collaboration with PNB, University of the People will help to democratize higher education within Muslim communities through tuition-free, collegiate-level programs. The non-profit organization has already accepted over 900 students from 115 countries, and looks to work with partners to accept another 100 students per year from two PNB countries. The initiative will be truly global in nature, equipping these students with communication to and support from peers worldwide to become productive individuals, active members of their communities and ultimately successful, global professionals
WillowTree Impact Investors:
Through the WillowTree Fund, WillowTree Impact Investors commits to support sustainable, scalable and profitable business that have tangible positive impact on the communities and environments they serve, by investing in such sectors as education, healthcare, nutrition, responsible energy, poverty alleviation, and community housing. As the first impact fund founded and based in the Middle East, by September 2011, WillowTree will begin investing between $1-10 Million in target companies throughout the Middle East, South Asia and Africa, with a commitment to invest in and support the growth of 15-20 companies over the next 5 years.
World Cocoa Foundation
In Indonesia, the World Cocoa Foundation and two of their company members – Armajaro and Mars Inc. – have partnered with SwissContact to implement Proyek untuk Peningkatan Kakao Aceh (PEKA), with funding from the World Bank multi-donor Fund for Aceh and Nias. In 2011, PEKA will train 8,500 farmers and indirectly benefit another 8,500, as well send two scientists from Acehnese universities to complete 2-4 month fellowships in the US, with the goal of increasing productivity by 50% in three years and to increase the percentage of coca beans harvested that meet the Indonesian national standard from 25% to 75%.
World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists
As the premier worldwide network of Muslim donors, the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists is committed to advance strategic giving by leveraging the more effective use of knowledge, wealth, and influence among Muslim philanthropists. In joining the PNB network, the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists will work with PNB partners to support innovative programs to alleviate poverty and promote entrepreneurship and good governance. In the initial phase, the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists through its multi-donor giving circle “Hasanah Fund” will raise $3 million for Pakistan over the next three years to assist smallholder farmers and landless laborers, mostly females, to achieve sustainable agriculture production.
AllWorld Turkey
The Turkey PNB Chapter launched the Turkey Fast Growth 25 in April 2011 to identify and support the fastest growing private companies in Turkey. Part of the AllWorld Network, the Turkey Fast Growth 25 will give global visibility to the next generation of industry leaders in Turkey.
The Atlantic Council / Tobiko Strategies (PNB-NAPEO)
The U.S Department of State has obligated $200,000 for the Atlantic Council’s Young Atlanticist Program in partnership with Tobiko to develop a closed entrepreneurship platform that will provide mentorship services, tools and resources for young entrepreneurs.
The Coca-Cola Company School Construction in Flood-Affected Areas (Pakistan)
Coca-Cola, in partnership with The Citizens Foundation, is building a new school in the interior Punjab province and will cover its operating expenses for five years. Coca-Cola has also partnered with CARE Foundation Pakistan to reconstruct five damaged schools in flood-hit areas of Muzaffargarh District, Punjab.
The Coca-Cola Company Livelihood Support in Flood-Affected Areas (Pakistan)
In January 2011, Coca-Cola began helping 500 smallholder farmers in Muzaffargarh to increase their agricultural productivity, in partnership with International Relief and Development.
The Coca-Cola Company Families Rehabilitation Project (Pakistan)
This project launched in 2010 to provide food rations to the flood-affected population in five districts and to support economic rehabilitation of women in the Swat region. Project components include relief assistance via food rations to 2,000 households led by women and livelihood support and training to women bee keepers, along with business linkage development for honey and bee by-products.
Cisco Systems, Inc. “SPARK for Women”
Cisco’s “SPARK for Women” will empower women by providing economic opportunity through IT education and training in Turkey. An initial group of 120 women in six cities will become trainers in these fields, and they will each be responsible for training an additional 20 women.
Education for Employment Foundation (PNB-NAPEO)
The U.S Department of State has obligated $600,000 to Education for Employment (EFE) for NAPEO regional programming in the Maghreb that will allow for regional employability training, job matching and entrepreneurship programming, as well as a cross-border “train-the-trainers” program to support young jobseekers and entrepreneurs in the Maghreb.
In addition, The U.S. Department of State’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) has granted Education for Employment (EFE) $1.45 million dollars to launch a locally-run non-profit organization, EFE-Tunisia, which will impact 800 young jobseekers and entrepreneurs over 2 years.