Washington, D.C. —  Aspects of the fruits of information technology bulk large in the agenda for Dialogue on Diversity’s September 13^th day-long Entrepreneurship and Information Technology Conference,  the 23^rd in this program’s annual series.  The significance and future of these now well established technologies top the day’s agenda, as Gregory L. Rohde, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce and chief of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, outlines the case for IT as a historically novel discontinuity in all realms of activity – one whose advent presages revolutionary transformation of the basics of everyday life and commerce.   Travis R. Hall, a current NTIA executive, lays out the contours of the salient changes emanating from IT, with a special account of the newly burgeoning Internet of Things, a class of automated systems that promise to map out new vistas of convenience and control in the coming era.  In a later agenda segment Matthew DelNero, Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau in the Federal Communications Commission, discusses the tough questions of extending effective broadband service to large numbers of persons who by reason of poverty or geographical isolation or otherwise, find themselves marginalized, shut out from sharing in the treasures of the internet, which has transformed much of life for the rest of society – even to the techniques for kids completing homework assignments (a daunting problem if your house cannot afford broadband service).   William Davenport,  Deputy Chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, details the resources that powerful agency can bring into play to identify and enjoin fraudulent advertising materials on the electronic media the agency’s mandate extends to.  

A mid-morning panel turns attention to a key social project: the formation of the now and future entrepreneur, the training and temperament that that form the Complete Entrepreneur.  Nicole Eickhoff, heading the Women’s Business Center of Northern Virginia, and Wendy Rivera-Aguilar, an Orlando, Florida attorney, discuss the sources of information, mentoring, and experience that characteristically enter the mix.     

The core tasks of the beginning entrepreneur are dealt with, first, by Gueter Aurélien, an attorney at the Venable law firm, as she reviews the variety of business forms – partnership, LLC, and others, whose respective features permit tailoring the legal framework for the special facts of each enterprise.  Randall Reade, the founder and ramrod of the fascinating venture capital network Washington D.C. ArchAngels, describes the careful research and shrewd coordination of backers, technology, and money, not to mention sheer courage,  that the initiating business figure needs to bring to the field of a competitive economy.   Sources of capital are dealt with by Aldo Elguera, of BB&T bank, and Angela Neira, of the non-profit Live Assets, an agency putting small enterprises in action through carefully calculated infusions of capital.

Jovita Carranza, former Assistant SBA Administrator and an active supporter of Dialogue on Diversity, leads off the midday session with an overview of the field of women’s entrepreneurship, and serves as moderator for discussions on the succeeding series of special topics.  Among these, Justin Vélez-Hagan, writer of numerous articles and a basic book on economics, and a prime expert on the economic travails of his native Puerto Rico, is slated to discuss the disrupted and depleted governmental finances of the Commonwealth, or Estado Libre, and the repercussions of the deep business slump felt throughout the island’s private sector as well – all generating migration of significant portions of the population to the mainland.   Andrea Zanon, World Bank risk management expert and past master in the art of rescuing shaky enterprises and propelling start-ups to success in every corner of the globe, holds forth on world economics and on a particular project in women’s entrepreneurship.   Deniz Karatas ,  setting out as a girl from a small city on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast,  through university and a career in business, has at length found herself in Washington as Executive Director of the Global Policy Institute think tank.  She recounts her Odyssey. 

In a seminar on the many faces of marketing Richard S. Ginsburg, former SBA senior expert on international trade, illustrates the marketing chances south of the border and elsewhere in the world, while Natalia Olson-Urtecho, Regional SBA Administrator for the Mid-Atlantic states, reviews the panoply of her agency’s services to the willing entrepreneur.                      `

The 2016 Conference will host three groups of novice women entrepreneurs, each a recent migrant from a Spanish speaking site in the Central American or Caribbean region,  as they acquaint themselves with the entrepreneurial art as expounded by the file of expert presenters on tap throughout the day’s agenda.  The groups are organized by the Carlos Rosario International Charter School, the Ana G. Méndez University System, and the program, known by its Spanish title: El Poder de Ser Mujer, managed by Ms. Sagrario Ortiz, who is also appearing as one of the Conference speakers.

The Conference convenes at 9:15 a.m. with welcoming remarks by Mr. Julio Güity Guevara, Deputy Director of the D.C. Office on Latino Affairs, with which Dialogue on Diversity has frequently collaborated.

The Conference is offered free of charge.  Register at www.dialogueondiversity.org.

Dialogue on Diversity:  Founded in 1991, Dialogue on Diversity, a §501(c)3 non-profit, is a national network of women entrepreneurs and professionals, actively promoting constructive dialogue among Latino and other ethnic and cultural communities, on social and civic empowerment, with especial emphasis on their economic viability through entrepreneurship.