On Wednesday, June 28, LINC participated in USAID’s 10th Annual USAID Small Conference in Washington DC. USAID’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) coordinated this full-day event, which convened over 400 U.S. small businesses. The event included welcoming remarks by Mauricio Vera and Wade Warren (Director of OSDBU and USAID Acting Administrator, respectively) and breakout panel discussions on navigating the USAID procurement process and learning how to work with USAID, both domestically as well with the USAID missions abroad.

LINC Managing Director, Patrick Sommerville, participated in a break-out panel entitled, “New Avenues for Partnership with USAID,” along with representatives from USAID’s Global Development Lab and Office of Acquisition and Assistance (OAA). Mr. Sommerville spoke about LINC’s experience working with an innovative, new award mechanism at USAID, the Broad Agency Announcements (BAA). Through this mechanism, which allows selected partners to pool their experiences and knowledge to address development challenges, LINC has secured four new awards funded by various USAID overseas missions and operating units.  Mr. Sommerville explained how the BAA’s unique co-creation process has opened the door to new partnerships, and enabled LINC to apply innovative new research and development methods in partnership with local actors. Subsequent discussion by the panel focused on different collaboration opportunities with USAID, including public-private partnerships (PPPs) and Global Development Alliances (GDAs).