The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) leads efforts “to save lives, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic governance and help people progress beyond assistance.”

The organization promotes America’s goodwill by providing its partner governments with development support on their journey self-reliance. In Asia, USAID partners with countries to help solve urgent development challenges.

The Innovative Development through Entrepreneurship Acceleration (IDEA) project was aimed to create long-term and sustainable economic growth through developing the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Philippines.

Since 2013, IDEA’s entrepreneurship programs have trained Filipino engineers and scientists in business planning, market identification, product marketing, business incubation, and working with venture capital. These were developed through workshops, learning exchange programs, and partnerships with various universities in the United States. The annual symposium brought together government, the academe, and private industry to discuss the state of entrepreneurship in the Philippines.

Through successful programs such as the Visiting Professors Program (VPP) and the Study Visit at the University of California (UC) Berkeley for Philippine-based engineering professors to the US, the Technopreneurship 101 subject was introduced into the engineering curriculum in 539 schools across the Philippines. The IDEA program concluded in March 2017.