{"id":25659,"date":"2012-06-11T22:07:49","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T02:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=25659"},"modified":"2012-06-11T22:07:49","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T02:07:49","slug":"press-release-the-u-s-japan-council-usjc-entrepreneurship-task-force-and-others-announce-a-strategic-partnership-to-bring-innovation-recovery-to-the-tohoku-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2012\/06\/11\/press-release-the-u-s-japan-council-usjc-entrepreneurship-task-force-and-others-announce-a-strategic-partnership-to-bring-innovation-recovery-to-the-tohoku-region\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Release:  The U.S.-Japan Council (USJC) Entrepreneurship Task Force and others Announce a Strategic Partnership to Bring Innovation, Recovery to the Tohoku Region."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Thanks to JET alum <strong>Andrew McCarthy<\/strong>\u00a0for sharing this information:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For Immediate Release<\/p>\n<h3>The U.S.-Japan Council (USJC) Entrepreneurship Task Force, SunBridge Global Venture Habitat and Venture Generation, Tokyo Announce a Strategic Partnership to Bring Innovation, Recovery to the Tohoku Region.<\/h3>\n<h2><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal;\">The partnership launched at an April 25 event at Stanford University supports entrepreneurs with game-changing ideas for the area affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. Leaders of this new initiative hope to breathe new life into the region by empowering entrepreneurs to rebuild the region in smart and innovative ways that will make it globally competitive.<!--more--><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The initiative includes the TOMODACHI Tohoku Challenge (TTC), an innovative business-plan competition, now accepting applications. TTC is bolstered by the USJC Entrepreneur Leadership Advisory Board (UE-LAB), a select group of leading Japanese and American entrepreneurs, investors and analysts with extensive experience in innovation, business start-ups and knowledge of Japan.<\/p>\n<p>TTC top semi-finalists may have the opportunity to travel to Silicon Valley in August as part of SunBridge\u2019s annual \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jannovation.jp\/week\/\">Jannovation Week<\/a>,\u201d a weeklong immersion program that introduces Japanese entrepreneurs into the Silicon Valley ecosystem, culminating in a venture capitalist moderated pitch competition. SunBridge is collaborating with Venture Generation, a new business incubator sponsored by J-Seed Ventures, Japan to select participants from Japan. Competition semi-finalists will compete for potential placement in an incubator, under the leadership of Allen Miner, founder of SunBridge and Jeffrey Char, founder of J-Seed Ventures. Char and Miner serve on the UE-LAB.<\/p>\n<p>The top three semifinalists will also receive all-expense-paid trips to the 2012 U.S.-Japan Council Annual Conference in Seattle, WA on October 5, 2012. The Conference will serve as a platform for the semifinalists to compete for top prizes of mentorship and pro-bono service packages. The two contest winners will receive priority placement in Global Venture Habitat and Venture Generation.<\/p>\n<p>SunBridge\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sunbridge.com\/habitat\/\">Global Venture Habitat<\/a>\u00a0is located within the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.plugandplaytechcenter.com\/about\">Plug and Play<\/a>\u00a0Tech Center in Silicon Valley and hosts entrepreneurs from all over the world, having vision and talent to build globally competitive firms. GVH has deep connections to entrepreneur and venture capital networks in Silicon Valley and offers intensive training for start-up entrepreneurs. GVH also has locations in Tokyo and Osaka.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.j-seed.com\/news\/2012\/02\/venture-generation.html\">Venture Generation<\/a>\u00a0is a venture community operated by J-Seed Ventures, Inc. VG is located near Tokyo Station and offers low-cost shared working space on flexible terms. \u00a0The community is managed by experienced entrepreneurs who founded and operated several successful ventures in Silicon Valley and Tokyo. \u00a0VG features a collaborative, peer mentoring process and offers members valuable business contacts and advice supported by a broad network of more than 70 advisors.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/usjapantomodachi.org\/\">TOMODACHI<\/a>\u00a0is a public-private partnership led by the U.S. government and the U.S.-Japan Council, with the support of the Japanese government. The TOMODACHI Tohoku Challenge is a part of this initiative, which invests in the next generation of Japanese and Americans while supporting Japan\u2019s ongoing recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake in ways that strengthen cultural and economic ties and deepen the friendship between the United States and Japan over the long-term.<\/p>\n<p>For more information and to download the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usjapancouncil.org\/images\/uploads\/TTC_Application_Updated_5.31_.pdf\">application<\/a>\u00a0visit: \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usjapancouncil.org\/index.php\/entrepreneurship\">www.usjapancouncil.org\/entrepreneurship<\/a>\u00a0or contact<a href=\"mailto:uelab@usjapancouncil.org\">uelab@usjapancouncil.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Media Contact: USJC Communications Manager Laura Goldstein &#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:Lgoldstein@usjapancouncil.org\">Lgoldstein@usjapancouncil.org<\/a>\u00a0\/ 202-223-6843.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usjapancouncil.org\/images\/uploads\/Entrepreneurship_Strategic_Parntnership_Press_Release.pdf\">Click here to download the press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to JET alum Andrew McCarthy\u00a0for sharing this information: For Immediate Release The U.S.-Japan Council (USJC) Entrepreneurship Task Force, SunBridge Global Venture Habitat and Venture Generation, Tokyo Announce a Strategic Partnership to Bring Innovation, Recovery to the Tohoku Region. The partnership launched at an April 25 event at Stanford University supports entrepreneurs with game-changing ideas [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[378],"tags":[612,1398],"class_list":["post-25659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-earthquake-tsunami","tag-jet-support-for-tohoku","tag-press-release"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-6FR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25659"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25661,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25659\/revisions\/25661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}