US Consul General Chennai Remarks Empowering Inclusion At Advancing Sustainable Value Chains Summit

U.S. Consul General Chennai Christopher Hodges at WEConnect remarked "Empowering Inclusion - Advancing Sustainable Value Chains Summit" on Tuesday, February 27, 2024 at Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru. Elizabeth A. Vazquez, CEO and co-founder of WeConnect, has been travelling to various cities in India, including Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, to support a State Department-funded project dubbed "Empowering Women and Advancing Sustainable Value Chains." This project has been going on for the past week throughout India.

U.S. Consul General Chennai Christopher Hodges said "We conclude the summit here in Bengaluru. given it is a city with almost 1,800 women owned businesses as of November 2023. It feels like a second home for me here, even though I am posted in Chennai, I am here just about every other week. I was here a couple of weeks ago to join Minister Priyank Kharge to welcome a trade and education delegation of 18 U.S. universities, who were in South India to recruit amazing graduate students, including a huge contingent of amazingly talented women, graduate students in business, engineering, and other fields, as well as foreign institutional partnerships."

"It is an incredibly important topic. Because it illustrates a fundamental point that is true in every facet of our relationship but particularly so when we talk about our economies: the empowerment of women and women-owned business is both a value - consistent with access to quality and fundamental rights that are part of the identity of both of our countries. But it is also an interest as empowerment of the vast talent pool of women and women-owned businesses is essential, if we hope to harness the full potential of our economic relationship. IAs Elizabeth and many others have said, it is 50 percent, it is more than 50 percent of the human capital we have. It is grievously underused. As President Biden noted, "this isn't just the right thing to do - it is also a strategic imperative that advances the prosperity, stability, and security of our nation and the world," Christopher Hodges remarked.

"We do a number of things at the national level to support this inclusion globally through the $900 million "Women in Sustainable Economy" initiative that was launched by Vice President Kamala Harris, who traces back to Coimbatore, not too far to the east from Bengaluru, as well as the USAID's $300 million Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation's 2X [two X] Women's Initiative continues to address the unique challenges that women face globally and unlocking the multitrillion dollar opportunity they represent. SCA applies a gender lens and sustainability threshold to every project they consider to ensure that women are part of those projects in a sustainable and productive way," he stated.

"As part of this effort, the State Department, together with USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, is really happy to be revitalizing the U.S.-India Alliance for Women's Economic Empowerment - a public private partnership to advance mentorship, women in STEM, and corporate commitments to ensure equality and access for women across the board in the economy. The alliance integrates the private sector, NGOs, and academic member organizations. It is also integrated in there because we recognize that we need an interdisciplinary, comprehensive approach - if we are really going to see change. We have to be doing this together with everyone all the time. It is about what happens between these projects and what all of you are doing every day that really makes a difference," he said in the context of this project within the relationship between the U.S. and India.

By talking about the idea of "Advancing Sustainable Value Chains" he said "This is a topic that goes back several years. We talked about the context of the pandemic, where we saw the impact of not having resilient and secure supply chains. But let us talk about value chains because they are different. Value chains are not just about the materials and the commodities that move from point A to point B, it is also about research and development, it is about design... and as we look ahead to the next generation of technologies, this is what is really going to be important - it is the R&D and it is the design and it is the original IP [intellectual property] that advances and catalyzes our relationship."

President Biden and Prime Minister Modi decided to launch an initiative known as the Initiative for Critical Emerging Technologies, or iCET, in May 2022. It envisions collaboration between all of these upcoming technologies. This is a thorough strategy. The sectors that will shape the economies of the future include artificial intelligence, green technology, quantum computing, commercial space, and others.

Talking about the WeConnect model and how this is so helpful and so relevant, Christopher Hodges said "This brings together U.S and Indian corporations, government officials, women-business owners, and leaders in venture capital for a comprehensive approach. That is exactly what we need to realize this potential. But within that model, there must be access to capital for women-owned business; there must be connections to global supply chains; there must be capitalization and resources for women-owned start-ups to help develop "use cases" for new technology and take those products to market. And those women-led start-ups must be fully integrated into this ecosystem in the same way that all start-ups are - with full access to capital, with full access to research, with full access to production at scale, that can help them to realize the benefits of their technology."

It is about the large Fortune 500 companies supporting R&D for SMEs and micros that may produce the innovation that we need to advance these technologies, rather than just integrating them into their supply chains or value chains. These SMEs and micros are led and owned by women.

This is an effort which requires governments, the private sector, investors, universities, and more to work together, U.S. Consul General said.

"U.S. investors can support R&D and training, and incubators of large companies can ensure capital for women-led micros and start-ups and can help to get them to market and expand beyond the traditional channels and personal relationships that have so often driven this in the past," he further added.