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We've got a special guest mentor visiting our #startups today! @BarackObama pic.twitter.com/BzEwQPuPEL
— Union (@JoinUnion) July 3, 2014
In honor of the Fourth of July holiday, President Barack Obama paid a surprise visit this morning to the most fittingly named D.C. establishment he could find: the tech hub 1776.
The expanding tech offices on 15th Street NW, just blocks from the White House (actually—-no dramatic irony here), host startups in shared spaces and the inchoate 1776 Ventures, which connects businesses with public-sector resources and contacts. It gets a shout-out in many public speeches by Mayor Vince Gray, who’s set an ambitious goal of making D.C. the biggest tech city on the East Coast.
But Obama’s visit brings a higher profile to 1776, which launched just last year. The appropriateness of visiting the tech hub on a holiday celebrating the events of July 4, 1776 was not lost on Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer, who tweeted:
POTUS visits @1776dc the day before 4th of July week, see what we did there
— J. Goldman -Archived (@Goldman44) July 3, 2014
Here are more photos of the visit from 1776’s Twitter feed:
Welcome to 1776 @BarackObama! pic.twitter.com/vybyHaNXs5
— Union (@JoinUnion) July 3, 2014
.@BarackObama signing in at 1776. "Company…U.S. Government…" pic.twitter.com/696SD1XUkI
— Union (@JoinUnion) July 3, 2014