What would happen if entrepreneurs focused their considerable intellectual and financial resources on creating solutions for urban citizens? What would happen if businesses focused on producing the two things urban citizens need most: products and services that solve the problems they face, and jobs? On October 10, 2014, at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, we will begin to discover the answers to these questions. On that date, business leaders, academics, government officials, community leaders, and students will come together at the first Michigan Urban Entrepreneurship Symposium. This event will help us determine the role that Michigan entrepreneurs can play in solving urban problems on a regional, national, and international scale. The rough agenda for the symposium is as follows:
- Overview: What is urban entrepreneurship? Can it work?
- Case studies panel: new and innovative business models for solving important urban problems.
- Methods panel: approaches for designing businesses in response to community needs.
- “Change the World” panel: student-led approaches to urban entrepreneurship.
- Toolkit panel: How do we best assist urban entrepreneurs to create sustainable, scalable, and in some case disruptive businesses?
- Next steps: creating a new generation of urban entrepreneurs.
This promises to be an enlightening, stimulating, and productive event, one that has the potential to ignite an explosion of effective entrepreneurship in urban communities. If you are interested in participating in the symposium as a sponsor, presenter, or attendee, please send an e-mail expressing that interest to uei-symposium@ebuktumedia.com. For more information regarding urban entrepreneurship, click here.