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The Wave March, 2004 eNewsletter Volume 2, Number 3
Road to Istanbul
“Accelerating Women’s Entrepreneurship” Forum Will Take Place June 5-7 in Istanbul


Marie-Florence Estimé, Head of the OECD’s SME Unit (left) and Tsunami’s CEO (right) briefed Connie Morella, the US Ambassador to the Paris-based OECD, on plans for Istanbul. In preparation for the meeting that day, Ambassador Morella wore her “Breaking the Glass Ceiling” pin.

Women entrepreneurial leaders, policymakers, experts and champions from numerous countries and economies around the world will meet in Istanbul from June 5-7, 2004, to participate in “Accelerating Women’s Entrepreneurship: An Experts Forum for Sharing Best Practices Globally.” The Forum–organized by Project Tsunami, the Kagider Association of Women Entrepreneurs in Turkey, and the OECD, in cooperation with the Turkish Ministry of Industry and KOSGEB–will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Istanbul. It is designed to advance women’s entrepreneurship around the world by sharing best practices, and providing strategies and templates for developing and implementing national, regional, and global action plans.

To prepare for Istanbul, experts will participate in “Virtual Istanbul,” a moderated online forum that will run throughout May 2004. While online, experts will:

  • Evaluate, sharpen and update recommendations from previous OECD women entrepreneurial conferences (Paris, 1997 and 2000, for which Tsunami’s CEO served as the Senior Advisor). Tsunami will forward these recommendations to the OECD for incorporation into the OECD Ministerial Conference on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurship that will take place in Istanbul on June 4-5 (where women’s entrepreneurship will be one of the strategies that the ministers discuss as a way to grow national economies and create jobs); and

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  • Act as a “virtual panel of experts,” and begin identifying and sharing best practices online, so that discussions in Istanbul can be substantive, strategic, and outcome-oriented.

    • After Virtual Istanbul, leaders and experts from around the world will convene in Istanbul to network and to learn from each other via plenary sessions, workshops, and a series of moderated expert roundtables. They will:

  • Share case studies and best practices relating to women entrepreneurial research and statistics, finance, access to networks and markets, entrepreneurial education and training, technology utilization, and advocacy and constituency building;

  • Formulate strategies for the ongoing development, identification and sharing of templates, models, best practices, emerging practices and action plans;

  • Identify potential metrics for measuring the economic impact and return on investment from supporting the growth of women’s entrepreneurship, in terms of GDP and jobs;

  • Facilitate collaboration among all key stakeholders and actors, including women entrepreneurs, their NGOs and intermediaries, policymakers, academic researchers, funding institutions, corporations, foundations, and international institutions;

  • Develop and update policy recommendations, in order to accelerate the global development of women’s entrepreneurship; and

  • Create virtual and face-to-face mechanisms for sharing models and leveraging resources (such as clearinghouses, virtual knowledge networks, and collaborative funding networks), and for linking excellent programs with financial and human resources. (continued)

    • “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

    Margaret Mead, Anthropologist



    Meltem Kurtsan, the dynamic President of Kagider, the Turkish Association of Women Entrepreneurs, and Co-Chair of the “Accelerating Women’s Entrepreneurship” Forum in Istanbul.

    About Tsunami

    Project Tsunami, Incorporated (www.projecttsunami.org), is a non-profit corporation based in the United States that is a global accelerator for women’s entrepreneurship. It was designed to help create a tidal wave of economic opportunities in the US 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 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 WE sector by concentrating on 6 core strategies:
    1) WE research, data and statistics;
    2) Entrepreneurial education and training;
    3) Access to finance;
    4) Access to networks and to corporate, government and international markets;
    5) Technology as an entrepreneurial enabler; and
    6) Constituency building and advocacy. We are also analyzing how these areas impact high-growth women entrepreneurs.


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