September 9, 2018
First of all let me start by offering a huge congratulations to my friends George, Lefteris, Minister Pappas. It seems incredibly exciting to see the energy here, the innovation.
I’ve gone around Greece over two years visiting startups, visiting incubators in Athens, in Thessaloniki, in Patras, in Giannena and one thing that I have been convinced of is that this is one of Greece’s great secret success stories with the fantastic entrepreneurial sector here. There are lots of young innovators who are just looking for the partnerships, for the capital, and for the enabling environment to grow their businesses and grow their ideas.
Our embassy is strongly committed to supporting that. That’s why we have our Tech.Olympus going on today and then we have all week at the American Pavilion a pop-up incubator done with our partners at Found.ation which is aimed at creating an environment that helps Greek startups to move forward, but also form partnerships with the U.S.
So again, Minister, it’s fantastic that this is happening. I think it’s a very hopeful sign about the future of the Greek economy, and as our Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross said yesterday at the inauguration, we really believe that this sector — technology, high tech, knowledge-based — is one of the areas for further growth in terms of U.S.-Greece trade and investment.
So thank you. We’re especially honored to have with us as part of Secretary Ross’ delegation Michael Kratsios who is the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology. And since the Minister was able to surprise [inaudible], I’ll also surprise Michael, too, and just ask him to say a few words.
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