National Entrepreneurship Month, 2016

Proclamation 9535 of October 31, 2016

National Entrepreneurship Month, 2016

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Entrepreneurs in America have long lent their talents
and passions to solving problems, generating growth and
prosperity, and turning dreams into new goods and
services for people across our Nation and around the
world. During National Entrepreneurship Month, we
celebrate the entrepreneurs who serve their communities
and bolster our economy, and we pledge our support for
them in their pursuit of the ideas and innovations of
tomorrow.

Through their intrepid sense of possibility and
resilience, and their unwillingness to give in or give
up, entrepreneurs from every walk of life make
invaluable contributions to the American experience--
turning bold ideas into real progress. My
Administration has made it a priority from day one to
support those who take a risk and put in the hard work
required to get a new venture off the ground. In 2010,
I signed the Affordable Care Act, which gives Americans
greater opportunities to start businesses by offering
portable and affordable health insurance plans through
the Health Insurance Marketplace. I signed 18 tax
breaks for small businesses in my first term, including
tax credits for those who hire unemployed workers and
veterans, and I launched the Nation of Makers
initiative to advance innovation and encourage making,
including homegrown technologies and startups. In 2013,
I signed an Executive Order to make Government data
more accessible to the public, and my Administration
has opened up nearly 200,000 datasets on www.Data.gov
to fuel economic growth, innovation, and
entrepreneurship. And earlier this year, I announced
the Computer Science for All Initiative--a plan to give
all students in America the chance to learn computer
science in school, which will equip our future
entrepreneurs, including those from underrepresented
backgrounds, with the computational thinking skills
they need to succeed.

In the 21st-century economy--where business does not
stop at a country's border and where technological
advancements have changed the ways we engage in
commerce and with one another--it is more important
than ever that we give our Nation's entrepreneurs the
tools and resources they need to compete on the
international stage. This past summer, I signed an
Executive Order that encourages entrepreneurship in the
United States and around the world, including through
the Presidential Ambassadors for Global
Entrepreneurship Program, to promote the sharing of
knowledge and experience with the entrepreneurs of
tomorrow. Additionally, as I attended the Global
Entrepreneurship Summit in California in June,
companies across America came together to sign the Tech
Inclusion Pledge: a commitment to making their
technology workforces more representative of the
American people. My Administration also used this
Summit as an opportunity to announce an expansion of
the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps
training program for entrepreneurial scientists and
engineers, as well as the Small Business
Administration's Startup in a Day initiative, with
nearly 100 cities and communities across our Nation
committed to streamlining licensing, permitting, and
other requirements necessary for anyone to start a
business. At the end of last year, I signed a
bipartisan budget deal that made permanent critical tax
incentives to help bolster investment in small
businesses and

research and experimentation, including by startups and
other innovative companies. And thanks to another
bipartisan bill I signed, entrepreneurs can raise
small-dollar investments from community members,
customers, and other individuals through new and
regulated online crowdfunding platforms--because access
to capital should be available to every aspiring
entrepreneur no matter who they are or where they are
from.

My Administration has also striven to expand
opportunity to those seeking to utilize their
entrepreneurial talents abroad. Following the beginning
of our process to normalize relations with our
neighbors 90 miles to the south in Cuba, we made it
easier for Cuban entrepreneurs to import and export.
Entrepreneurs flourish when they are surrounded by an
environment that encourages their success--that is true
here at home and around the world. My Administration
remains committed to implementing the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, a trade agreement that will have a
profound effect on our efforts to support online
entrepreneurs and enable American entrepreneurs to sell
``Made in America'' products all over the world. And
through our proposed International Entrepreneur Rule,
we are working to ensure the world's best and brightest
entrepreneurs can launch companies and create jobs in
the United States.

As we celebrate National Entrepreneurship Month and
Global Entrepreneurship Week, let us resolve to support
those budding entrepreneurs looking to use their ideas
and expertise to build a better life for themselves and
their families--and let us tap into the diverse skills
and talents across our country so that entrepreneurs
from all backgrounds can continue creating the
businesses of the 21st century. Entrepreneurship is
about the opportunity to forge one's own future, and an
investment in that future can start as something small
and turn into something great. That is the legacy
shaped by generations of American entrepreneurs who,
through ingenuity, passion, and self-determination,
have always striven to achieve the next big, unknown
thing.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the
United States, do hereby proclaim November 2016 as
National Entrepreneurship Month. I call upon all
Americans to commemorate this month with appropriate
programs and activities, and to celebrate November 15,
2016, as National Entrepreneurs' Day.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
thirty-first day of October, in the year of our Lord
two thousand sixteen, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and forty-
first.