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Greater Washington Initiative to Host U.S. Government Contracting Event at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany on March 14

HANNOVER, GERMANY, March 9, 2005 – A team from the Greater Washington Initiative (GWI) will host a conference at CeBIT 2005 in Hannover on March 14 entitled, Doing Business with the U.S. Government: The World’s Largest Buyer of Technology. CeBIT, the largest annual IT, telecommunications, software and services exhibition in the world, attracts more than 6,200 exhibitors and more than 510,000 visitors representing technology companies from around the world.

The U.S. government is the world’s largest consumer of technology, spending more than $60 billion on information technology in 2004 alone. This spending only continues to increase as the 2006 U.S. fiscal budget calls for $65.2 billion in information technology spending, a 7.1 percent increase. Over the past 50 years, the U.S. Government has contracted much of its work to the private sector, rather than hiring and training new government employees. This has created many new opportunities for global businesses seeking to enter the U.S. government market.

GWI’s conference will provide: an overview of how to do business with the U.S. government; information on how to increase current government business through the General Services Administration (responsible for over 25% of U.S. government procurement); and highlights of U.S. Government procurement opportunities within the areas of information technology, telecommunications and homeland security.  Attendees will also hear first-hand from three global companies who have successfully entered the U.S. government market, each using different sales channels.

Featured speaker, Ms. Kay Goss, Senior Advisor for Homeland Security at Herndon, Virginia-based Electronic Data Systems (EDS), will discuss government business opportunities with EDS, one of the largest U.S. government prime contractors.  EDS recently announced five new U.S. government contracts valued at more than $200 million for electronic travel services under the General Services Administration.

Other speakers include: Karl Pringle, Director of U.S. Operations for U.K.-based Strategic Thought located in Herndon, VA; Eckart Pech, President & CEO of Detecon Inc., a German-based telecommunications and innovation engineering company with U.S. headquarters in Reston, Virginia; Matthew Lee, President & CEO of Fastech Inc, a Korea-based fast growing 8(a) IT services firm located in Beltsville, MD. Bernd Fischer, Economic Minister at the German Embassy in Washington, DC; Kevin Plexico, Executive Vice President of INPUT, a Reston, Virginia-based provider of government market intelligence ; Hope Lane, Officer of GSA Schedules Consulting Practice, Aronson & Company.

The GWI team will be led by Chairman William Couper; Managing Partner Thomas Morr, and International Business Development Director April DuBois. The conference will take place on Monday, March 14th from 10:30 am - 1pm at the CeBIT Convention Center in Room 3 b.  Conference is free of charge, but registration is required.


For more information or to register for this conference, visit:

Conference E-vite . .. Agenda

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The Greater Washington Initiative (www.greaterwashington.org) is the economic development organization representing the Washington, DC region, which has a population of nearly 6.0 million and is the fourth largest economic region in the U.S.  Covering 15,500 square kilometres and encompassing the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia and Suburban Maryland, Greater Washington has led the U.S. in job growth over the past 20 years, adding about 70,800 (preliminary estimate) new jobs in 2004.

 


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