Collaboration Awaits: Blacktech Weekend aims to connect black innovators with a lasting network

The most important aspect of Blacktech Weekend’s return to Kansas City Friday: connecting individuals from different segments of the entrepreneur cityscape, said Denayja Reese.

“Across industries, we want them to collaborate with each other and continue to build community as well as bring in folks who are outside of the community into the fold,” said Reese, founder of Miami-based GWTLP, which organizes the one-day Blacktech Weekend in KC. “I hope that the people who attend the event learn things that they didn’t know before. Whether it be a funding resource or if they learn from someone else’s’ ideas.”

Blacktech Weekend 2018

Blacktech Weekend is entering its second annual Kansas City offering this week, having debuted during 2018’s Global Entrepreneurship Week. The program targets black entrepreneurs, innovators and “techies.”

Click here to read about the 2018 Blacktech Weekend conversation on tearing down walls built by exclusive startup lingo.

“Most of the time, [Blacktech Weekend’s] out of town [speakers] are dealing with many of the same issues as those [in Kansas City]. They are able to have conversations about how they are balancing it given their different circumstances,” Reese said, explaining the event. “It really gives the attendees an opportunity to learn from the people even if they are coming from different sides [of the issue].”

The Kansas City event is also set to feature a number of local voices, including Philip Gaskin, senior director of entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation; April Boyd-Noronha, chief engagement strategist for The STEM Broker; Bryan Shannon, founder and CEO of TicketRX; Dan Smith, co-founder of The Porter House KC; and Dell Gines, senior community development advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Click here for more information on Blacktech Weekend, which begins 10 a.m. Friday at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Activities from a fireside chat and panel conversations to masterclass breakout sessions, Reese said.

This story is possible thanks to support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a private, nonpartisan foundation that works together with communities in education and entrepreneurship to create uncommon solutions and empower people to shape their futures and be successful.

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