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Yesterday USDA and First Lady Michelle Obama announced the Apps for Healthy Kids competition – part of Mrs. Obama’s Let’s Move! Campaign to raise a healthier generation of kids. The contest challenges developers to create innovative, fun and engaging tools and games that encourage children to make more nutritious food choices and be more physically active.

To get the ball rolling, The White House and GOOD asked “What kind of healthy kid app would you like to see developed?” on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Here are some of our favorite responses:

From our Facebook fans:

John Allan: A pedometer app for the iPhone that yells at you to get off the couch if you don't get enough steps in per day?

Lindsay Hattaway: An app that let's kids track the type of activity they participated in and the time spent on it each day. Make it a race to be on top against other friends who have the app.

Robbin Burnett Webb: An app such as the "video game" where you are able to cook your own food, using your own ingredients. Kids need to learn how to cook with healthy, fresh ingredients. A lot of parents can't teach them how, because they don't know themselves. Get the kids interested in the kitchen! (from good)

From our fellow Twitterers:

ieatreal: GPS kid-mapping of "wild zones" in their "playborhood" @GOOD Q: What Healthy Kid App wld u like developed? cc @WhiteHouse @ChildrenNature

freshnewengland: @whitehouse re: food app - a visual that shows healthy vs. unhealthy portion sizes, links to farms & farmers markets by zipcode; bike maps

And from our LinkedIn group:

Jim Taylor: As a parent of 3 young children, I would love to see an APP that would calculate various nutritional values simply by scanning the bar codes of the product. Smart phones read bar codes, and by attaching the FDA Nutritional information, a family could scan in all the items they consumed in 1 Hour, or 1 Day, or 1 Week. Suggestions could be given to the family for things like alternative or healthier substitutions, how much exercise they need to do to be fit on the registered diet, links to more information relating to the topic, etc. You could also have things like allergies be quickly ascertained.

Learn more about the challenge at HealthyKidApps.com and check out a recent blog post by Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack.

Stay connected to the White House on facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for upcoming questions.

Click here to see the video.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama spoke about doubling America’s exports over the next few years. Today, he discussed the first steps to meet that goal at the Export-Import Bank’s Annual Conference.

While addressing the importance of America being able to compete in the global marketplace, the President explained that every $1 billion increase in exports would support more than 6,000 jobs. To promote American exports, he announced that the administration is launching the National Export Initiative, an effort to utilize the resources of the government in support for businesses that sell goods and services abroad.  

The National Export Initiative will increase access to trade financing for businesses that want to export goods while also increasing the amount of trade-financing export-import offers to support small and medium-sized businesses. The President explained that the government hasn’t done enough to promote businesses abroad in the past, and under the National Export Initiative, the U.S. will advocate for American companies around the world. 

This is an effort I will personally lead as President.  Next week, I’ll take my second trip to the Asia Pacific – a region that will be fundamental to America’s ability to create jobs and to thrive in the 21st century.  We can’t be on the sidelines -– we have to lead, and our engagement has to extend to governments and businesses and peoples across the Pacific.  So while I’m there, I’ll visit Indonesia and Australia, two vibrant economies and democracies that will be critical partners for the United States.  And in both countries, I’ll highlight the role that American businesses play there, and underscore how strong economic partnerships can create jobs on both sides of the Pacific while advancing both regional and global prosperity.  Going forward, I will be a strong and steady advocate for our workers and our companies abroad.

The initiative will begin coordinated efforts to promote new markets and opportunities for American exporters, and ensure that the companies have free and fair access to those markets.

The President also announced that the administration is working on a proposal to reform the Export Control System for high-tech industries in order to strengthen national security. The steps to reform the system include creating a more efficient process for companies to get their products to the market, and removing unnecessary obstacles to export to companies with dual-national and third-country-national employees.

He explained that these efforts will help to double exports, open new markets, and level the playing field for American businesses and American workers.

In times like these, questions have always arisen about whether or not America’s best days are behind us.  That’s standard fare.  It happens every so often.  There have always been naysayers and skeptics.  There were always those who’ve waxed fatalistic, fearing that we lacked the capacity to adapt, to succeed – at times even to survive – in a changing world.

But what makes America great, what continues to make America the envy of our competitors, what makes this a place where people come not just to invest but to start lives and businesses and families, is something that has been inexorable and enduring, especially in times of great challenge and great change.  It’s that spirit of adventurousness and entrepreneurship that has for generations turned wild-eyed tinkerers into world-changing entrepreneurs; that led us westward and skyward; that led to roads and railways cutting through wilderness, and ships and planes and fiber optic lines carrying American goods and services around the world.  It’s the spirit that has advanced America’s leadership in the world and held aloft the American Dream for generations.

President Barack Obama addresses the Export-Import Bank’s annual conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.,