In the last two weeks, the presidential candidates have been focusing on the current events in Afghanistan and stating that it's time to get out of the country and drop this War. At this stage, it's a peace-keaping operation to maintain a safe economic environment and support the educational system in Afghanistan.

Karen Finney, in her article on The Hill, mentions that the cost is over 500 billion dollars for Afghanistan alone. In case we get out of Afghanistan, we must find a venture capitalist willing to purchase a fraction of the investment, take a huge return, and possibly take credit for the new Afghan education system, the cradle of the digital engineers of tomorrow. Is this China? Are we losing our minds?

I am not a politician and am not running for President so I can layout what Film Annex is doing in the city of Herat, Afghanistan:

• Providing internet classrooms to 160,000 students and helping to build schools in Afghanistan.
• Consolidating a network of skilled Afghan writers and teaching them how to get paid for writing blogs on Film Annex.
• Creating a network of Afghan women who can share their recipes and traditions and get paid for writing blogs in their native languages, translated to English by the people in our offices in Kabul. 
• Scouting and establishing Veteran business opportunities in the US and Afghanistan.
• Connecting Veteran businesses with Afghanistan business opportunities.
• Documenting Veteran business opportunities and success stories info on Afghanistan and promoting them to our 12 million unique visitors a month.
• Generating fantastic revenues and sharing them with Afghan and Veteran businesses.
  

In 2001, Afghanistan was the land of horrors. Now, we can easily communicate with several Afghan and American companies and establish great collaborations like Film Annex has done with Roya Mahboob and her software company. Read this article on Masooma Habibi. Going backwards is bad business.

The human cost today is bigger in the US where there are limited employment opportunities for Veterans, mostly due to the stigma of Veterans being broken heroes.
(G.I.V.E.), Global Initiative for Veteran Entrepreneurship, was created with the purpose to eliminate the broken hero stigma and sponsor Veteran business opportunities in the US and Afghanistan.

By 2014, when the US troops leave, Afghanistan will be fully connected to the global community through their fast growing digital industry. If you do not take part in this amazing opportunity, it's your loss. We are there!

Francesco Rulli

follow me @rullifrancesco