1/26/01
AFRICAN-AMERICAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP SUMMIT RETURNS TO AU
AUBURN -- The seventh annual African-American Entrepreneurship Summit is scheduled for Feb. 13-16, returning to the Auburn University campus after meeting in Birmingham, Montgomery and Tuskegee.
The 2001 summit at the AU Hotel and Dixon Conference Center will focus on "Using Entrepreneurship To Remake Black History."
The conference was created in 1994 to help black business owners improve their global competition, says Keenan Grenell, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and director of AUšs Public Administration Program. Grenell is the founder and director of the summit.
This yearšs summit is in partnership with AUšs College of Business and the U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of Small Business Development.
There will be a reception on Feb. 13 to begin the summit. Program activities will begin the next day with a Teen Challenge Summit, where more than 400 youth affiliated with the Alabama Cooperative Extension Systems 4-H program are expected to attend.
Keynote speaker at a Feb. 14 noon Teen Challenge Summit luncheon will be retired Tuskegee Airman Donald Thomas. The luncheon will be followed by concurrent sessions on a variety of topics on youth entrepreneurship.
At 4 p.m., Karen Starks-Canada will present the John Sibley Butler Free Thinking Person Lecture. Starks-Canada is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Clark-Atlanta University and will speak on how entrepreneurship can help women get off federal assistance programs.
The program on Feb. 15 features a Town Hall meeting which will be live via satellite from 3 p.m.-5 p.m.
Panelists for the Town Hall meeting include: program moderator George Curry, editor-in-chief of Emerge: Black Americašs Newsmagazine; popular speaker and noted author George Fraser; Chris Brazell, program manager with the Appalachian Regional Commission; Ruth Carter, a National Car Rental executive; Della Clark, president of The Enterprise Center; Earl Cummings, president of the government services division for Betstaff Technical Services; and George Neely, chair of the Department of Business at Xavier University. In addition to the Town Hall meeting, one-on-one business counseling sessions will be held, along with sessions on a variety of topics facing African- American small business owners. The summit will conclude Feb. 16 with an awards luncheon.
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CONTACT: Grenell, 334/844-2493; or for information on the Teen Challenge Summit, call Bob Drakeford, extension specialist for volunteer programs, 334/844-2219.