Connecting Global Innovators
The Global Innovation Forum is a nonprofit startup that connects entrepreneur, small business, development, and university communities with policymakers and select corporations to explore the opportunities and challenges of engaging in the global marketplace.
Our Objectives
Elevate the global opportunity
that exists for a diverse set of startup, business and nonprofit stakeholders. GIF improves understanding of the new role that startups, nonprofits and businesses of all sizes are playing in the global marketplace, finding new customers, partners and tools to sustain and grow their operations.
Articulate the policy challenges
that startups, nonprofits and small businesses face, often without the assistance of high-profile lobbyists or lawyers. GIF helps entrepreneurs and innovators articulate the regulatory, customs, market access and related challenges they face to government officials and the public.
Improve the public policy landscape
on critical global issues surrounding trade, innovation and regulation of the digital economy. GIF offers a unique platform for business, startup, nonprofit and university stakeholders to improve governments’ understanding of how policies may affect their ability to participate in global markets.
Enable more effective participation in global markets
through programming, guidance and partnerships with organizations including the U.S. International Trade Administration. GIF elevates the public and private tools that exist to enable entrepreneurs to participate more effectively in global trade.
“The Global Innovation Forum is a valuable partner to the International Trade Administration in helping to connect a range of private sector stakeholders to the Startup Global pilot initiative and improve startups’ understanding of how to participate effectively in global markets.”
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker
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Our partners
The Global Innovation Forum works with select partners to collaborate on programming, research and thought leadership, integrate our respective networks, and build a community of globally-engaged, policy-aware entrepreneurs, innovators and officials.
News
The new threat of Internet Tariffs
Governments are adopting or considering adopting new policies that will charge tariffs at the border on large portions of the Internet, including video calls, cloud computing, streaming video and music, e-Books, mobile phone apps, and social media. These policies...
read moreGoing Global @ SXSW 2019
Let the countdown begin! The Global Innovation Forum (GIF) is heading back to Austin, Texas this year for South-by-Southwest (SXSW) 2019 from March 9 - 12 and we are especially excited about all the global programming. Below is a list of our top picks for this year -...
read moreGIF Newsletter: 2018 in Review
Read the Global Innovation Forum's January 2019 newsletter featuring a summary of our work in 2018.
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GIF works to build and leverage a diverse network of stakeholders who are involved in global innovation and trade
@ NFTC
Housed under the National Foreign Trade Council Foundation, the Global Innovation Forum is able to leverage the resources and expertise of a century-old organization dedicated to an open, rules-based global trading system.
