The Urban Entrepreneurship Symposium convenes entrepreneurs and thought leaders in business, academia, community organizations, and government to facilitate business innovation that improves the quality of life in urban communities. The first Urban Entrepreneurship Symposium (UES2014) was held at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The 2015 edition (UES2015) took place at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan. In 2016, the location and focus of the symposium will be the city of Flint, Michigan. Why Flint? Because Flint’s ongoing water crisis is but a symptom of the ills threatening many urban communities. UES2016 will focus the best minds in the city, region, and country on applying entrepreneurial innovation to revitalize Flint and similar communities.

This year’s symposium will focus on entrepreneurial ACTION to address issues such as Flint’s water crisis, urban unemployment, and more.

UES 2016 Mission
• Focus the entrepreneur community on solving urban problems via for-profit businesses.
• Forge productive connections between entrepreneurs, investors, students, faculty, and urbancommunities.
• Identify important urban problems that can benefit from for-profit business innovation.
• Identify new business models that can result in repeatable, scalable businesses that address key urban problems.
• Identify and recognize existing businesses that are applying innovative business models to solve important urban problems.
• Share best practices in community engagement, problem identification, human-centered design, business model creation and validation, finance and support systems, and other key areas.

Save the date!

More information will be provided in the coming weeks.

For more information about the Urban Entrepreneurship Initiative and the Urban EntrepreneurshipSymposium, see urbanei.org.

See UES2015 Detroit video trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO0yiwriFM0&feature=youtu.be

To register and buy tickets, visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/urban-entrepreneurship-symposium-2016-urban-revival-tickets-27123894298