Speeches
SUSTAINING A TRANSATLANTIC CULTURE OF CREATIVITY
Speech to Creative Nation Conference:
New York City
September 20, 2007
Those of you who are from Denmark, or who read the Danish media, may know that I have just recently completed Day 8 of my 45 Day, 1800 km bicycle ride around Denmark. We have traveled over 500 km, from Nakskov in the South, to Helsingor in the North, and through many picturesque, historic and inspirational spots in between.
My bicycle tour has been branded as my "ReDiscovery Tour"; a journey across the countryside to Rediscover that special connection, that unique spirit, that has united America and Denmark in a common transatlantic bond for generations. I have witnessed that spirit at countless stops along the tour: in schools and in town halls, in ethnic communities and country estates, in corporate headquarters and research facilities, in galleries and churches, in museums and mosques.
It is a spirit that has kept America and Denmark the closest of friends for over 200 years. It is a spirit that holds the key to the sustainability of our future relationship. It is a spirit that has at its root, a proud culture and tradition of innovation, of adventure and of creativity.
I saw that spirit on Day Seven of my tour when I visited "Macho Custom", in the village of Graese, just outside of Frederikssund. Macho Custom is one of the largest Harley Davidson custom shops in northern Europe. Bjorn Susgaard started the shop several years ago and now has seven employees, who produce some of the most beautiful "hogs" I have seen outside of the Danish Crown processing plant.
Bjorn couldn't wait to show me his "stuff." As I was beginning my speech to the gathered crowd of 20-plus, Bjorn went into the garage and cranked up his twin-cam, steel head and the inimitable "potato potato" sound of the Harley engine filled the air. Giving up on my efforts to speak over the booming sound of the engine, and giving in to the encouragement of the crowd, I donned a helmet, hopped on the back, grabbed onto Bjorn's stomach, and headed down the rural backloads of Graese.
Now I must admit, I thought the most frightening event of my Tour was on Day One, when I was standing atop one of Denmark's tallest wind turbines, down in Naestved, holding on, in a 20 kmph wind to the lone teather which prevented me from tumbling 80 m to the ground below. But traveling along the blacktop of rural Denmark at 160 kmph, holding onto the stomach of a stranger, with nothing to stop me from falling off but my sweating and slipping fingers, knowing that we were going so fast that the PET chase car was having a tough time keeping up, was just short of terrifying. But the whoops of Bjorn and his Harley-riding friends was a special exhibition of that spirit of innovation, of adventure, and of creativity that I am talking about.
I saw that same spirit on Day Four of my Rediscovery Tour, a Day when Minister of Culture Brian Mikkelsen and his wife Eliane rode with me, when, leaving the Old Grocery Store in Forslev, headed to Roskilde, we literally stumbled upon, unplanned and unscheduled, one of the most unique cultural connections between America and Denmark that I have seen. We turned a rural corner and happened upon "Texas Western", a Country and Western store that rivals anything Texas itself has to offer.
If the American flags flying from the roof hadn't caught my attention, then the cowboy in the window, and the fake horse out front surely did. We slammed on the breaks, brought the caravan to a screeching halt, and dashed inside. There the storeowner Doris Olsen, who was in the back and had not witnessed our arrival, practically had a heart attack when she came out and realized who this excited group of English-speaking visitors was. She quickly called her husband Jørgen , who soon arrived with great enthusiasm, insisting that he change into his "authentic country and western cowboy uniform" and join us for a priceless photo. I thought Rene and Alex, the PET bodyguards, were going to jump him when he strapped on his six-shooter, went to the window, and pulled the trigger to prove to me it was real!
That spirit of creativity that I found at Macho Custom and Texas Western is a spirit I have seen all over Denmark. It is a cultural focused creativity that shares roots with the American cultural experience. But the embodiment of the spirit that I am really talking about, the spirit that holds the key to our sustained relationship is not so much the spirit I saw at Texas Western, it is something different. The spirit that holds the key to our sustained relationship is the spirit of innovation and creativity on which America's remarkable entrepreneurial economy has been built; a spirit born by our forefathers who brought with them from Europe and Asia that inspiration and attitude that has made America "the Land of Opportunity", to use the words of the first Danish university student I met with when I arrived two years ago.
It’s the kind of spirit I saw on Lolland, at the Baltic Sea Solutions Hydrogen Test Facility, where you are creating a storage capacity using hydrogen for storing electricity produced from wind turbines, and in the process turning Lolland municipality into the first truly energy independent island in the world.
It's the kind of spirit I saw at Naestved where Vestas is designing the next generation of 44 meter wind turbine blades.
It's the kind of spirit I see in Kalinborg where Novozymes is developing the enzymes that will launch the second generation of biofuels.
It’s also the kind of spirit I see in Haslev, at the Sydostsjaelland Idraetsefterskole ("Southeast Sealand Sports School") where the students have raised funds privately to build a school … to build a school in a village in India, for young people who are dealing with failure, to encourage them, to inspire them and to give them the tools to succeed in life.
It is a spirit of creativity, of innovation, and of entrepreneurship that is etched in the Danish culture, sometimes in the background, sometimes screaming for attention, but there nonetheless.
It is a spirit that ranks Denmark in the Top 10 Globally of innovative countries, according to The Economist.
It is a spirit that, I believe, holds the key to not only "Sustaining a Culture of Creativity", but sustaining the close relationship between America and Denmark, long into the future.
What I would like to share with you this afternoon is what I believe are the Three Keys to Sustaining This Transatlantic Culture of Creativity:
Key 1, Nurture Innovation and Risk Taking in the Young.
The young people who are students at the Southeast Sealand Sports School I visited have learned the lessons of taking risks. One of them told me "sports has helped me to realize that there is nothing wrong with competing to win; and that to win in life you have to take risks, and that if you take risks you sometimes fail. The key to winning, he said, is getting back up after you fail."
The willingness to take risks and to think like entrepreneurs is at the heart of the American Dream. Your Globalization Council report acknowledges the importance of instilling an attitude of innovation in your young people. But I would offer that if you want to really instill that attitude of innovation and entrepreneurship in the young, send them to America.
Everywhere I travel on my ReDiscovery Tour I meet someone who is eager to talk with me about their experiences as a student in America. I have heard it from mayors and ministers; journalists and CEOs. Even the Crown Prince talks fondly of his days at Harvard.
Each year over 2500 young people from Denmark travel to America on some form of educational study program. We would like to see that number double. Unfortunately trends are in the opposite direction. But what I would like to see most, as we work to sustain a culture of creativity, is that when these young people go to the US, that your students seek out those universities and high schools in America, that have a strong curriculum in entrepreneurship. Schools where a focus on entrepreneurship and innovation, is a part of their core curriculum.
There are a number of these, and they teach young people not only to "be" entrepreneurs, but they teach them to think like entrepreneurs. I am launching one such exchange program in two weeks at Aarhus Business School, in partnership with the Entrepreneurial Exchange Initiative at NC State University from my hometown.
Motivate and incentivize your young people to seek out and attend these schools, and when they come back, give them the tools and resources necessary for them to succeed. And don't forget to forgive them if they fail in their first attempt.
On this issue of exchange programs, it might interest you to know that while there are over 800 high school students in Denmark who travel to America for educational programs each year, up until this year, not a single Dane with an immigrant background a so-called "new Dane" has been on a high school exchange program to the US – not a single. My team at the US Embassy in Copenhagen felt this needed addressing. So we teamed up with the Egmont Foundation and this summer sent 15 "Egmont Scholars" from ethnic neighborhood high schools in Denmark on a three week summer program in the US.
Steffen Kragh and I met with these young people when they returned a few weeks ago. They came back with a new spirit, a spirit of determination to make a difference in their schools and their communities. Steffen and I challenged them to be Role Models for their peers, and to report back to us in five years on their progress.
The Egmont Scholars project not only seeks to nurture innovation and risk taking in the young, it also addresses one of the burning domestic need acknowledged by many Danes; the need for social integration of second generation immigrants.
The first key to sustaining a transatlantic culture of creativity---nurture risk taking and innovation in the young.
The Second Key to Sustaining the Transatlantic Culture of Creativity: Let America Be your Partner.
You in Denmark have the culture of innovation and creativity. We, in America have the markets, we have the capital, we have the scale, and we have the collaborators to harness that creativity to change the world.
Some of the great commercial success stories of recent days have come from partnerships between Denmark and America.
*Motorola's world-class Razor phone; designed and tested in Denmark.
* Bavarian Nordic's life-saving smallpox vaccine, production enhanced
exponentially through a billion dollar deal with the US Department of Health and Human Services;
* Microsoft's acquisition of Navision, which Steve Balmer told me was revolutionizing Microsoft's innovative capabilities, and was the best investment Microsoft has ever made.
* Leif Hansen's strategic collaboration with Thornton Tomasetti Group, located right here in New York City, developing and engineering "green" buildings throughout America and Denmark, including the new T-houses in Orestad, and Vestas' new blade factory in Colorado.
These are examples where Danish innovation has collaborated with American capital and American marketing power, to create powerful synergies that can change the world. You have heard other such stories this morning.
We are working hard to encourage American capital and American companies to come to Denmark, to seek out such collaborations. Your Embassy in Washington and Consulate in New York are doing the same thing.
And in this effort, our commercial association partners play a vital role. The Danish American Business Forum, Dansk Industries, and the American Chamber, all three serve distinct functions, and all three play vital roles in facilitating such collaboration.
Working with these three groups your Minister of Defense and I initiated a formal program this spring to ramp up collaborations in the Defense and Security area. Working together, we have opened doors and made introductions for more than 100 Danish companies with the US Department of Defense, and American Defense Contractors.
Working with these same groups, I traveled to Chicago, Minneapolis and Silicon Valley last March to introduce American venture capitalists to the remarkable opportunities emerging in Denmark in the area of energy innovation seeking ways for "America to Be Your Partner".
With respect to innovation in the energy sector, this brings me to the third key for sustaining a transatlantic culture of creativity.
The Day of my Senate Confirmation Hearing two years ago, a very smart person in Washington gave me two pieces of advice that have guided my mission in Denmark. The first was that "We need to bring the American business model to the field of foreign policy. But it is not the General Motors model we need to bring; it is the Silicon Valley model." The model where creativity, innovation, risk taking and collaboration are the attributes most valued. The second thing he said is that "Great nations do great things together."
The sustaining of a transatlantic culture of creativity requires a "Silicon Valley" attitude toward innovation. And it requires the great nation of Denmark, and the great nation of America, to do great things together, great big things.
And of course we work on big things every day: cooperating on our fight against Islamic extremism, seeking an international consensus for peace in Darfur, ensuring a future of hope and security in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Tomorrow morning, I join your Foreign Minister in Washington for discussions with Secretary of State Rice, where peace in the Middle East will be at the top of the agenda. These are all big things and they are all great things.
But there is no area riper with potential, no area to which our two nations are, working together, better suited or more uniquely positioned, and no area more important for our sustainable world, than the area of energy innovation.
Many people smarter than I, in the Danish government, in the American government, in the Danish private sector, in the American private sector, in Danish academe, and in the American academe, are focused on the challenges of energy innovation and the opportunities that the Copenhagen 2009 Climate Conference provides to us. But between now and Fall of 2009, we need to find one great thing to do together in this field of energy innovation.
And that is My Third Key for Sustaining a Transatlantic Culture of Creativity: Lets find One Great Thing that Denmark and America can do together in the field of energy innovation.
I do not know what that one great thing is. I do not know whether that one great thing might already be underway. I do not know whether that one great thing will be a product or a process or a technique or an invention or an idea. But I do know that it will only come IF we have a culture of transatlantic collaboration that involves the private sector, the public sector and the academic sector, working together in an environment of empowerment, innovation and urgency similar to that which America undertook to prepare for the liberation of Europe Six decades ago.
I challenge each of you here to give thought to what that one great thing may be. Perhaps you want to incentivize your universities and your young people to initiate the search for the One Big Thing.
Perhaps you want to consider endowing, with American and Danish benefactors, a prize for the most innovative and important "Great Thing" between now and the climate conference, similar to the Ansari X Prize for private space travel, or the Index Award that the Crown Princess spoke of this morning.
But I would urge you to grasp the realization that the time and the attitude and the opportunity are right for us to do something great together.
My ReDiscovery Tour of Denmark has helped me to better understand the roots of our enduring relationship. Along the way I have met many ordinary, and extra-ordinary Danes. I have come to appreciate the tradition of innovation that is embedded in your history and culture.
From Tycho Brahe's revolutionary developments in astronomy, to Niels Bohr's advances in physics; From Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen's achievements in radio and sound technology and design, to Camilla Stærk and Peter Ingwersen's hot new fashion designs, that were all the rage two weeks ago here in New York for Fashion Week; Danish creativity has driven global progress for hundreds of years.
I yearn, as do all of America's leaders, and all of my predecessors, for this culture of creativity to bind us long into the future.
I believe that by nurturing innovation and risk taking in the young, by letting America be your partner, and by focusing on the one great thing we can do together now on the pressing issue of our age, we can accomplish our goal. America appreciates its partnership with Denmark as we continue this progress, to sustain our mutual culture of creativity, for years to come. And I appreciate your inviting me to join you this afternoon.