22nd
annual convention continued as planned
Last week's terrorist attacks made transportation to the convention more difficult, but staff and chamber members did what they could to arrive anyway. Some flew, some drove, and some took the bus. The USHCC staff chartered a bus, which they rode for 10 hours on Saturday from Washington, D.C. "We're going with the flow as best we can," said Maria Ibañez, vice president of communications for the USHCC, who expects a 20 percent decline in attendance resulting from last week's terrorist attacks. Entertainment scheduled for each evening has been canceled, and instead, members are invited to attend a memorial service Friday evening conducted by Ambassador Andrew Young at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta. "It's still the convention, just a different one," Ibañez said. Highlights of the conference are still on schedule: the Hispanic businesswomen's luncheon at the Atlanta Hilton and the town hall meeting with Governor Roy Barnes at Georgia State University, both on Thursday; the business expo and job fair on Friday and Saturday at the Georgia World Congress Center; and the e-Simulation Pavilion, which will offer sessions during the expo on how to remain competitive using state-of-the-art technology. The pavilion will offer simulation training used at IBM, Verizon, British Airways and the MBA program at Harvard Business School. Networking began early Wednesday for 20 minority entrepreneurs from the Southeast and the country. After a brief continental breakfast, the invited participants went behind closed doors to videotape a practice pitch to venture capitalists. The event, called Southeast i-DealFlow Forum, is the brainchild of leaders in several business organizations who wanted to give minority entrepreneurs unprecedented exposure to venture capitalists, said Michelle Garcia, the forum's director. Participants were selected using a three-stage screening process that included an on-line application; a business plan; and a personal interview. Each minority-led business is seeking between $1 million and $10 million in equity capital. "We didn't know that we were selected out of such a large group," said Dolly Martinez, president of Data Collections Unlimited LLC, in Alpharetta, which does software and wireless training and development. "That's an honor. We expect to get a lot of results." Organizers
and participants said the exposure of i-DealFlow is unprecedented. Moore said that efforts to nurture investment in minority ventures are necessary because, in order to get into the loop, you have to be in the loop already. In other words, it's who you know. "Venture capitalists get a business plan, and they put them in a stack of eight or ten and never read them because their friend already called them about someone," said Moore. "If you're not in the referral loop because your uncle, or your father-in-law, didn't do what you are doing, it's hard to get noticed." Wednesday's events will culminate in private coaching sessions that will train entrepreneurs to give a more effective presentation. They will have the opportunity to do so at the final event of the forum: the venture fair on November 2nd in Atlanta. Between now and then, coaches will continue to mentor their assigned entrepreneurs. Organizations that are spearheading Southeast i-DealFlow are: AOL Time Warner; Turner Broadcasting System; The Coca-Cola Company; the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition/Wall Street Project; the Telecommunications Development Fund; the Four Times Foundation, a Native American incubator based in Montana; the U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce; Minority Technology Entrepreneurs; and the Georgia Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology. (www.AtlantaLatino.com). |
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