UEDA Annual Summit 2014 - Awards of Excellence - Leadership and Collaboration - EntreFest
Understanding that small business owners benefit and learn best from interacting with their like-minded peers; a collaborative group of Iowa service providers joined forces in 2007 to plan what would become EntreFest – a venue for Iowa small businesses to come together to learn, share, and celebrate being an entrepreneur in America’s heartland. EntreFest has been held annually since February 2008, and moves to different locations throughout the state, so that all small businesses will have the opportunity to attend a conference close to ‘their back yard”. What began as a small gathering of main street business owners has expanded to become something so much more. In 2013 UNI entered into a public-private partnership with a small socially minded startup called Seed Here Studio to help our team re-envision what EntreFest could be. The goal from the start was exceedingly lofty; to attract entrepreneurs from every segment of the entrepreneurial stack- from micro-enterprises, small business owners, innovators, and even a venture company wanna-be (or two) and to maintain our pull with our public sector partners that we had attracted to the event in previous years. Billed as Iowa’s most comprehensive entrepreneur event, EntreFEST would redefine the way that conferences for entrepreneurs could be held. This reimagined model can be implemented in other communities, regardless of size, entrepreneur composition, or willingness of public sector partners to participate, primarily because when an event is entrepreneurially driven, business owners and the public sector will respond. View the full case study at: http://universityeda.org/value-to-members/best-practice-sharing/awards-of-excellence/2014-awards-of-excellence/awards-of-excellence-2014-finalists/entrefest/
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UEDA Annual Summit 2014 - Awards of Excellence - Leadership and Collaboration - EntreFest
- 1. UNIVERSITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE ROB WILLIAMS | PATRICK LUENSMANN UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA – REGIONAL BUSINESS CENTER
- 2. No Conference -> Let’s Make One! Timeline Idea Planted by UNI Team in 2007 after seeing a gap Roundtable Engaged & Planning Committee Formed First Conference Held in 2008
- 3. EntreFest! Matures Leadership & Collaboration Successful Five Year Run Partnerships Formed Every Year with City, Chamber, Main Street Orgs, etc Expanded Planning Committee Over 1,000 Iowa small business owners touched Iowa Service Provider Smorgasboard Inspiration & Innovation Traveling- highlighting five entrepreneur communities Surprise and Delight Informational Sessions on Emerging Technologies, Social Media, Guerilla Marketing Inspiring Speakers Recruited
- 4. Eschewing the Conference Model Entrepreneurs Leading New Models BarCamp 1 Million Cups Startup Weekend Our Approach: Listen, Imagine, Collaborate, Evaluate We need entrepreneur partners...
- 5. A New Collaboration Begins Public/Private Partnership Formed Reimagined “EntreFEST”
- 7. Collaboration at Work Speakers Venue Content
- 8. Impact and Outcomes Attendance Records Broken, and Unprecedented New Relationships Forged in Entire Entrepreneur Stack Several Startups Launched Major Media Coverage of Innovation in Iowa
- 9. Sustainability Shared Ownership Constant Relevance Broad Audience Institutional Support
- 10. Scalability & Replicability Open Sourced EntreFEST Multi-State Attraction Shared Ownership and Resources Universities Best Positioned to Lead or Support
- 11. Come to EntreFEST 2015! May 20-22, 2015 Iowa City, IA http://www.EntreFEST.com Join us at EntreFEST 2015
Editor's Notes
- VIDEO Amandee couldn’t come today, but we did ask him from his perspective what he thought about the collaboration between our organizations. In keeping with the spirit, here is his response?