ROUNDTABLE 2000    ROUNDTABLE2000    ROUNDTABLE2000


Preface:

Where: Shepherd College
Shepherdstown, West Virginia

When:Saturday, June 3, 2000

Sponsored by: The National Learning Foundation, Washington, DC
The Institute for International Training, Trade & Development,
Morgantown, West Virginia, and
Global Education Motivators (GEM), Philadelphia, PA


The Roundtable convened West Virginia business, government, and professional leaders plus representatives from South America, Europe, Africa, Russia, CIS, Asia and Central America to explore global collaboration for training trade and development. The Roundtable is the first of three events that will culminate with a major international conference in West Virginia in 2001. This program is endorsed and supported by Cecil H. Underwood, Governor, the state of West Virginia.



West Virginia International Initiatives
- A Millennium 2000 Strategy

ROUNDTABLE REPORT
June 3, 2000

Globalization is presenting new networking, training, trade, and partnering opportunities. To participate requires State-wide involvement and collaboration. Some 32 States are in various stages of generating plans to do so. While, in recent years, West Virginia has made significant progress in expansion of employment, business and financial activities, the pace can further be accelerated.


This Millennium 2000 Strategy is designed to realize a leap forward in the State’s position as a more active participant in national and international commerce. This approach uses the unique outreach and linkage capabilities of the State’s Eastern Panhandle that is now an integral part of the greater Washington/Baltimore/New York corridor. The Eastern Panhandle is West Virginia’s natural bridge to global and international affairs. While reaching out to federal agencies, foreign embassies, the United Nations, and international commercial activities, this natural linkage can also open West Virginia to tourism, world markets, aand visiting business delegations and foreign governments as seen most recently in the Israeli-Syrian peace talks. Exploratory efforts examining this concept were well received and given substantial support.

Building on this momentum, a Roundtable was held at Shepherd. College, Shepherdstown, WV on June 3, 2000. The Roundtable created a Task Force to further the work of developing a Millennium 2000 Strategy. It also looked at ways to reduce barriers and facilitate development opportunities for West Virginia in this increasingly interdependent global environment.




The immediate objectives of the Task Force are to: (1) make West Virginia a national and international Trade Point center (2) place West Virginia’s trading potentials into the global e-commerce networks, (3) systematize connectivity to expedite trade opportunities, and (4) gain synergy through coordinated State services.

The long-range initiatives to be explored by the Task Force will lay the foundation for forward-looking West Virginia programs that enhance global participation in: (1) public-private partnering to improve trade and training opportunities, (2) addressing issues of business ethics and cultural diversity (3) fostering linkages between research, academe, and industry, (4) advancing transfer and implementation of technologies to developing nations, and (5) systemization of connectivity among all stake-holders.




The immediate Task Force assignment is to plan for the November 15-16, 2000 meeting in Charleston, West Virginia. The Charleston meeting will bring together State, national and international leaders to establish new linkages, to share information on new opportunities, and to provide input and support for the Task Force’s planning of an 2001 International Conference in the Eastern Panhandle which will formally launch the West Virginia International Initiatives 2000 with the inauguration of new programs, services and collaborations.




Breakout Outcomes


An objective of the June 3rd Roundtable was to foster identification of Task Force objectives while gaining perspectives from many points of view. Therefore, the Roundtable was divided into representative cross-section Breakout groups. They were asked to address such questions as: (1) What impedes WV’s advances into international trade and programs? (2) What assets does WV have ? and (3) What we need to do to avail ourselves of the opportunities in this emerging globalization? The groups worked several hours before reconvening in a plenary session where each Breakout group reported. The results of the Breakout Groups can be summarized as follows:








Breakout Outcomes


What resources are available to WV to facilitate international trade?



West Virginia Resources

WV has an array of local, state, federal, international resources. To meet the challenges of globalization, they need to be linked into a mutually supportive system. A system is needed which more effectively utilizes the strengths of each resource component. Here are two Massachusetts examples of academe/business partnerships: (1) Boston College has developed trade relations with Northern Ireland, developed a database of markets, services and products which was enhanced by using its alumni network, and having safe haven linkages, (2) the UMASS Lowell spawns new ideas and products through its research which are incubated into marketable services and products through established or newly created corporations which, in turn, share profits with the university to promote further research. The systems thinking is state-wide!

Coordinate and systematize WV efforts! But how? What are the resources? What besides coal, lumber, chickens and landfills does WV have to offer? With what does it have to work?



- Historical /Cultural resources
- George Washington Trail
- Civil War Trails /Battlefields
- Shennandoah Valley Historic National Battlefield Commission
- Shennandoah Valley Rail Initiative
- Civil War Reenactments & National Holiday Celibrations
- Exchange students / teachers programs
- Rotary and Lions International
- Churches / Ministry
- NCTC / GAO at Clarion


West Virginia has some very useful and valuable resources to use as a foundation for linking into global trade. What are some of the national and international resources WV can reach out to for assistance and to gain connectivity?





Breakout Outcomes


Exploration of Issues Impeding WV International Trade



Impediments

As Sates go, WV has, over the years, been viewed as the locus of back-country folks with some, but not much, education who struggle to make ends meet. The new industries and emerging economic diversity of WV are overshadowed by its coal-dust image. It is an old and inaccurate public perception that must be dispelled. The work to be done must begin “at-home” in WV. Many of the related WV impediments are deficits needing an application of new, updated information disseminated more directly with: (1) the concerted use of advanced technologies, (2) the use of networking, partnering, and collaborative efforts, and (3) a shared vision of a competent and capable WV on the move. To do so, WV needs to consider some of the following: