During the 2014 U.S.–Mexico Commercial dialogue, the U.S. International Trade Administration asked the U.S. Economic Development Administration to open up their economic assets to catalyze innovation and entrepreneurship. Realizing that economic prosperity is a hemisphere priority and leveraging the recently released Signs of Competitiveness Reports of the Inter-American Competitiveness Network at the OAS, EDA and ITA joined with the OAS and the U.S. Department of State to expand this concept to include all the Americas. Thus, the ACE program was born- leveraging local economic assets to drive hemisphere prosperity and growth. ACE has now been held all over the world, including in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Canada, Germany, and Israel.