I had the privilege today to speak at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship.

I ultimately consider myself an entrepreneur – from the time David Filo and I started Yahoo! in a small campus trailer parked at Stanford, and even more so today. David and I had a dream fueled by the entrepreneurial spirit and a love for technology.

The gathering of delegates at the Summit represents an appreciation for the critical role entrepreneurs play in advancing the global community. The Summit follows the President’s commitment during his June 2009 speech in Cairo, and is an effort to join existing efforts and inspire new efforts to promote entrepreneurship and innovation, with a focus on Muslim-majority countries and Muslim communities around the world.

Many renowned experts in the U.S. and globally are speaking, and President Obama addresses the group this evening.

I spent most of my talk discussing what it takes for regions, countries and societies to create a “high growth entrepreneurship” environment – one that is ripe for technology entrepreneurs.  Later today, I will share a link to view my speech.

While entrepreneurship may be an individual’s pursuit, a “high growth entrepreneurship” environment where technology entrepreneurs can thrive doesn’t happen by accident.

You need to have the right foundation to enable entrepreneurship to flourish.   A foundation that includes: a commitment to research and development; investment in education (including fundamental science at the University level); access to capital funding; and a culture that encourages an entrepreneur ecosystem – from immigration and technology access to online communities and mentors who encourage our youth.

Over the years, the U.S. has addressed much of the foundational elements of high-growth entrepreneurship, and as a result, we see a steady stream of entrepreneurs, technology innovation and economic opportunities.

Let me share two powerful stats.

· According to the Kauffman Foundation, between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old or less. That is about 40 million jobs.

· In 2008, research from the National Venture Capital Association showed that VC backed companies in the U.S. employed 12.1 million people generating $3 trillion in revenue.  This represents the equivalent of 21% of the U.S. GDP.

But the power of the Internet, innovation and ideas, and entrepreneurship is borderless.  People around the world, especially young people, are increasingly enthusiastic about chasing new opportunities and starting their own businesses.

And for any entrepreneur, whether they’re in Cairo, Egypt or Cairo, Illinois, or India or Indonesia, the challenge becomes building the bridge and foundations that will enables high-growth entrepreneurship and technology to flourish.

The Middle East shows signs of a growing number of budding entrepreneurs.

The Silatech Index: Voice of Young Arabs study conducted with Gallup in June 2009 found that the majority of Arab youth surveyed believe entrepreneurship is the key to future job creation in the region.  Underscoring that fact was the fact that 26 percent of the young Arabs surveyed in the region were planning to start their own business within the next 12 months.

From my perspective, what is particularly encouraging about these results is how they highlight an emerging willingness to consider new approaches and pursue new ideas.

Let me share an example. The founders of Maktoob.com, a company Yahoo! acquired last year, pursued a new idea 10 years ago.  Co-founders Samih Toukan and Hussam Khoury noticed there were few online services that offered content in Arabic, their native language.  In their spare time, they began to work on an email service that would support Arabic, later adding others online content services.

They were fortunate to have education, mentors (including Fadi Ghandour, a successful CEO/entrepreneur in the Middle East) and funding, which would help make this dream possible.  Samih and Hussam ultimately created the world’s largest Arab online community.  Today, with more than 19 million users in the Middle East region, Yahoo! Maktoob is committed to increasing Arabic content and helping youth and entrepreneurs in the region.

Just last week, Yahoo! Maktoob, in partnership with NGO Nahdet El Mahrousa, launched a social entrepreneurship campaign in Egypt called, “Social Innovation Starts with YOU!”.  Individuals from across Egypt will be invited to become the next social entrepreneurs of the year by developing new ideas in the fields of education, health and the environment.  Ten winners will receive monetary grants and technical and management support for three years to help bring their ideas to life.

Samih and Hussan’s journey highlights what is possible for today’s entrepreneurs.  There are plenty of other examples of successful entrepreneurs in emerging markets, and opportunities for others with a desire to create future companies or ideas  – in mobile technology, software, clean technologies, biotech or social networking, to name but a few.

In this “flat world”, there is a tremendous opportunity for countries around the globe to participate in high-growth entrepreneurship and further technology advancements. It is critical for everyone – public officials, private industry, NGOs, educational institutions, entrepreneurs and others – to help build a foundation to help support this.

Collectively, we can make an impact, and help ensure entrepreneurship and technology continues its remarkable progress in emerging economies and around the world … so that future generations will see their dreams come to life.

Jerry Yang
Co-founder, Yahoo!

Economic traumas. Military entanglements. Crazy weather. And yet, even as we tried to find ways to survive day to day, we were also acutely aware that we were living through momentous times.

The Yahoo! Year in Review returns. Since 2001, we’ve been crunching lists based on search data. Naturally, we’ve expanded quite a bit since those early Internet days, and because a list of 10 is barely a drop in the sea of billions of searches, we’ve expanded beyond that to walk through the moments and events behind the trends.

This year, we have eight primary themes, and not surprisingly, two are finance-focused. “Financial Hangovers” and “Market Darlings” reflect the yin-yang of a rough year. Many of you hunkered down, staycationed, built up credit—and in more heart-wrenching scenarios reflected in searches, checked in with state unemployment sites, foreclosure details, and student loan alternatives. Not all businesses were bailing (or bailed out): Market Darlings touches on the big leap in fiscal viability of social networking sites (or rather, tiny little leaps in 140 characters or less) and e-readers. Whoever said people don’t read anymore needs to get thee to a wireless device.

You didn’t give up the political diet that you were on for the past two years. Aside from a few puzzling gubernatorial detours here and there, many of you focused on a political agenda that ranged from stimulus plans to wayward governors. The one big political category is “Obama in the House.” Barack Obama was the first politician to crack the Yahoo! Top 10 by taking the No. 3 spot in 2008, but he slipped off this year when he became the 44th President. Then again, people knew exactly where he was: on Pennsylvania Avenue, churning out executive orders and setting priorities. No matter if you voted for or protested against, the commander-in-chief commanded the headlines and searches.

We also covered overnight sensations (Susan Boyle) and infamous breakouts (Nadya “Octomom” Suleman) in “Sudden Fame,” newly coined terms in health (H1N1) and science (conficker worm) in “Mad Science,” shocking passings and sad good-byes in “Farewells,” and of course the Top 10 Searches.

Several notable shifts happened in the Top 10. The breaking news that Michael Jackson died became the top search of the year. As many of you know, the Web traffic on June 25, the day the news emerged of his demise, was massive, surpassing even Inauguration Day just months earlier. Online investigations into his death also turned into tributes to the King of Pop’s legacy, as people sought his music, videos, and even costumes to honor him on Halloween night.

While some are familiar faces (WWE, Britney Spears, NASCAR, Runescape), some terms are new: Vampire hysteria vaulted “The Twilight Saga” to the No. 2 slot, savvy rising star Megan Fox got herself in the top 5, and Kim Kardashian isn’t just the new Paris Hilton, but a symbol of reality TV prowess. As for Britney Spears, the princess of pop was hard at work this year on her “Circus” tour, and cut back on the antics that had commanded searches for the last four years of her No. 1 reign.

This year on the Year In Review site,  we also created a “Rewind” video. Check it out here:

YOUR YEAR IN REVIEW:

And as part of the 2009 Year in Review, Yahoo!s have an opportunity to tweet their own top moments of 2009. Tweet your top moments of 2009 here:

http://yearinreview.yahoo.com/2009/moments

By the way, some consider 2009 more than a historical turning point, but also the marker for the decade’s end. This year was more than a handful, but you can take a look at our past top searches by checking these links:

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Vera Chan, Senior Buzz Editor for Yahoo!

In fact, people with Obama fever broke records across Yahoo! News on Tuesday, seeking as much news and information as possible. Let’s take a look at why:

• Historic milestone – That’s the no-brainer. It seemed that whether or not Americans voted for President Obama, they appreciated the significance of inaugurating our first African-American president. Global interest in this American tradition was never higher.
• Net news rules – As the Pew Research Center reported in December, the Internet has surpassed newspapers and all other mediums except television for national and international news. And even that is destined to change, considering 6 in 10 people under age 30 prefer the Web to TV for news. As more people turned to the Web on Tuesday, we saw our highest traffic day ever on Yahoo! News, with 12.3 million unique visitors (the equivalent of the populations of New York City and Los Angeles combined) logging 329 million page views. These eye-popping figures beat our previous records around Hurricanes Katrina and Ike.
• Web video has arrived – Online video is no longer seen as a spotty, unreliable medium fraught with outages and buffering, as it might have been in 2000 and 2004. While hiccups can still happen, it seems people now confidently log on to live news coverage online knowing they won’t miss a thing. That was paramount on Tuesday because the inauguration and ensuing festivities fell during the workday for Americans. Yahoo! News upped our video server capacity as we logged record video streams, surpassing even Election Day coverage.
• Photos attract – People like news stories, but they can’t seem to get enough of photos – both news agency and user generated. On average, people viewed more than 70 images per person among our 56 inauguration-related slideshows (vs. our normal 40 photos per person). Not surprisingly, the most viewed set was of First Daughters Malia and Sasha. Over at Flickr, people tagged more than 150,000 photos and videos with terms related to the inauguration, along with those newly submitted to the Commons by partners like the Smithsonian that show historic images of past inaugurations.

As demand for online news continues to grow, our team will look for new ways to help you sort through the volume of news information and formats available. Who knows what the next record-breaking event will be?

But one thing’s for sure. It’s nice to see Internet news come of age.

Neeraj Khemlani
VP & GM, Yahoo! News