THE AMERICA21 PROJECT

The America21 Project (formerly The Black Innovation and Competitiveness Initiative) is an open, collaborative and innovative platform that fosters solutions-based approaches to 21st century community economic development.

Supported by three essential pillars of innovation:

• STEM Education and Workforce Development
• Access to Capital and Capital Formation
• High-Growth Entrepreneurship

The America21 Project (A21) strategy seeks to leverage existing assets within Black and urban American communities to create new opportunities and ensure competitiveness in the global Innovation Economy.
A21 will facilitate a new narrative to inspire free exchange of innovative ideas among community, business, government and education leaders, students and entrepreneurs, with a goal of achieving exponentially greater economic growth and prosperity throughout Black America.

The America21 Project synthesizes these core components — education, entrepreneurship and capital — to broadly define the Innovation Economy as the economic era of the late 20th and early 21st centuries marked by radical socioeconomic changes brought about by the globalization of commerce, democratization of information and access to capital, and the exponential growth of entrepreneurship and acceleration of new knowledge creation.