Urban Entrepreneurship in NOLA

New Orleans Urban Entrepreneurship Forum
July 20, 2011 at Xavier University

Yesterday the City of New Orleans along with the White House Office of Public Engagement hosted an Urban Entrepreneurship Forum focused on discussing and identifying opportunities for urban entrepreneurs. Im really happy with how the event turned out.

Our team here in the Mayor's office got word from the White House less than two weeks ago that they wanted to do this event here. So its been stressful past few days but well worth it. We had over 300 residents register and 8 candidates compete for $10,000 in the live 60 second PITCH event done by 100 Urban Entrepreneurs.

Our Forum began with a conversation between Mayor Landrieu and Michael Blake, Deputy Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Throughout the day we had three keynote addresses by John Hope Bryant, Deborah Elam, Vice President of Diversity from GE (and my sorority sister), and New Orleanian, Calvin Mackie in addition to the three panel discussion and breakout sessions.

Overall, I felt this to be a very inspiring event. Considering the challenges our country still faces with the economic downturn, this renewed entrepreneurial spirit provides the type of energy we need to build companies that will create and sustain jobs. I think that there has definitely been a level of hesitation when it comes to investing in an urban entrepreneur. For whatever the reasons, inner city business owners have lacked the ability to access capital and supports to take their mom and pop companies and turn them into high growth potential firms.

Listening to the business ideas for the selected businesses who participated in the live PITCH, its evident that there is no lack of talent here in New Orleans. Tying this back to the Office of Supplier Diversity and my internship, I see a real value to help build the capacity of these entrepreneurs through city contracting opportunities.

TGIF

Logo I developed for the New Orleans local hire initiative. 

Most people look forward to Fridays because its the official start of the weekend, typically a chill day to wrap up the week. However, in the New Orleans Office of Supplier Diversity we take our Friday's very seriously. Two weeks in a row, Fridays have resulted in the start of new, time sensitive projects.  Last week it was crafting a presentation on a First Source local hiring initiative for city resident, and this week its planning for an Urban Entrepreneurship Forum with the White House. 

Me hard at work

New Orleans has been selected to host the second summit on Urban Entrepreneurship on July 20, 2011. President Barack Obama has recognized the critical role that entrepreneurship has played in creating jobs and economic opportunity and has committed his administration to creating public-private partnerships to support entrepreneurs. As part of this plan the White House Office of Pubic Engagement and Domestic Policy Council are engaging in urban entrepreneurship summits in select cities. The first was hosted in Newark, NJ at Rutgers Business School on June 6, 2011. 


So I expect this week to be extremely busy for our office. More details come. 

Hit the Ground Running

So this week I returned to New Orleans and didn't skip a beat getting back to work on summer projects with the Office of Supplier Diversity. A lot has happened in the 3 weeks that I have been gone: the office has welcomed three new staff members. So with a full team, its all hands on deck to get disadvantaged business enterprises certified and winning city contracts.

With the certification and contract compliance roles in the office now filled, my priorities have shifted a bit to focus on policy development and outreach programming. Building off of the resources that I gathered from last week's WBENC Conference, a summer goal of mine will be answering the question for DBEs of "now that I am certified, what's next?"

This week I got the chance to meet with Melissa Gibbs of Gibbs Construction, one of the major general contractors in the Louisiana area. Melissa is the Business Development & SBE/DBE Outreach Coordinator  for her family's construction firm and was a member of Mayor Landrieu's Transition Task Force on City Contracting and DBEs. As the main point of contact for women, minority and small business owners interested in doing business with Gibbs Construction, my conversation with Melissa shed light on the fact that many DBEs in the city aren't aware of how to approach general contractors about sub-prime contracting opportunities. So helping DBEs figure out what to do after they get their certification from the city is extremely relevant to increasing the number of women owned businesses who win city contracts. Over the next couple of weeks I will be hard at work developing a curriculum around this as well as communication plan to outreach to certified DBEs.

Also, this week I got to sit in on a meeting with Aimee Quirk, Economic Development Advisor to the Mayor and my summer internship sponsor, which resulted in me assisting her on an employment project that will be presented to Mayor Landrieu in the next two weeks. More details to come on this ...

So while I may not have to work through the weekend to meet deadlines, everything this past week hasn't been all work and no play. I arrived back in New Orleans just in time for the Essence Music Festival. The festivities kicked off Thursday night with two parities hosted by the Mayor and Congressman Cedric Richmond and I was in the building rubbing elbows with some of New Orleans business and political elite. Tonight I'm off  to the Superdome to see the one and only, Kanye West. I have to say, I love this city!