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“It’s a Tsunami!”-- APEC Economies Agree to Share Women Entrepreneurial Best Practices in Istanbul
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Many members of Tsunami’s Global BrainTrust
converged in Chiang Mai, Thailand, from July 30 to
August 3, 2003, as speakers at the eighth annual
APEC Women Leaders Network (WLN) conference.
APEC--Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation--
represents 21 economies surrounding the Pacific,
including Canada, Chile, Mexico, Russia and the
U.S., plus many Asian economies.
Participants included ministers and policymakers,
entrepreneurs and businesswomen, and
prominent academics interested in women’s
entrepreneurship.
When Tsunami’s best practices accelerator
program was showcased at the end of an
afternoon session, so many women leaders
rushed up to the dais to learn more about
Tsunami--and a number of members of Business
and Professional Women (BPW) surged onto the
stage to witness the signing of a Best Practices
Agreement with the Philippines--that someone
called out, “It’s a Tsunami!”
Nine ministers, policymakers, academics and/or
heads of organizations signed agreements to
develop national or organizational best practices
for presentation at a Women Entrepreneurial Best
Practices Forum that will be held in Istanbul from
June 2-6, 2004. The Forum will take place in
parallel with an 83-economy OECD Ministerial
Conference of ministers of industry and small and
medium enterprise (SME) ministers, at which
women’s entrepreneurship will be looked at as a
way of growing national economies. All APEC
economies are expected to participate.
Government agencies and organizations--
sometimes several different groups from an
economy--agreed to develop best practices for
Istanbul, including Canada, Chile, Chinese Taipei
(Taiwan), Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Other groups are awaiting approval from ministers
or international Boards of Directors.
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“It’s a Tsunami!” Virginia Littlejohn, Tsunami CEO
(second from left on bottom row), and Dr. Nona S.
Ricafort, PhD, National President of the Philippine
Federation of BPW (third from left on bottom row), sign a
Best Practices Agreement focused on women in small
and medium enterprises (WSMEs).
Littlejohn (left front), signs a Best Practices Agreement
with Sarmite (Sam) Bulte (right front), Member of
Parliament and Tsunami Global BrainTrust (GBT)
member, who chairs the Canadian Prime Minister’s
Parliamentary Task Force on Women Entrepreneurs.
Other Canadian delegates at WLN (back row, left to right)
included GBT members Maxine Westaway, President of
The International Alliance for Women (TIA) and Dr. Lorna
Wright, Director of York University’s International MBA
Program and a leading expert on Canadian women
entrepreneurs; plus Lynne Brisdon, Program Coordinator
of the Venture Development Centre for British Columbia
Institute of Technology; and Sue Hooper, Canada’s WLN
Focal Point.
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Leading researchers from around
the world are currently
participating in a Tsunami online
forum to develop a global template
for use in sharing national and
organizational case studies and
best practices. This should result
in a lot of substantive new
information for Istanbul.
About Tsunami
Project Tsunami, Incorporated
(www.projecttsunami.org), is a non-profit
corporation based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA,
that is a global accelerator for women’s
entrepreneurship. It was designed to help
create a tidal wave of economic
opportunities in the U.S. and abroad, by
identifying and connecting key women
entrepreneurial leaders, facilitating the
sharing of best practices across countries,
and helping to link effective programs with
resources. It uses 21st Century technology
to make a clearinghouse of resources and
best practices available to its powerful
global network of leaders and multipliers,
who then disseminate this information
widely to their members and stakeholders.
The organization began its work with a major
seed grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman
Foundation, which funds innovative programs
that foster entrepreneurship.
Tsunami is an outgrowth of two major
international conferences on women-owned
small and medium enterprises (WSMEs) put
on by the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) in
Paris in 1997 and 2000, for which
Tsunami’s CEO Virginia Littlejohn served as
Senior Advisor. Project Tsunami influences
policies, practices and programs that expand
the WSME sector by concentrating on 5 core
strategies– 1) WSME research, data and
statistics; 2) Entrepreneurial education and
training; 3) Access to finance; 4) Access to
networks and to corporate, government and
international markets; and 5) Technology as
an entrepreneurial enabler. We also are
analyzing how these five areas impact highgrowth
women entrepreneurs.
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