Roughly 350 people are expected to attend EntreFest, an annual innovation and entrepreneurship conference in Cedar Rapids in June, organizers said.
Produced by NewBoCo, a Cedar Rapids nonprofit offering programming that supports entrepreneurship, innovation and tech education, EntreFest aims to bring people together and expose them to cutting-edge information, organizers said. The event will be held June 12-13 in the NewBoCo neighborhood.
“EntreFest is probably one of the things I look forward to most each year and I do think it is because it’s such a fun opportunity to bring the community together from all aspects of the state, but then also bring in some folks from outside of the state to see the cool things that are happening here,” said Jill Wilkins, executive director at NewBoCo.
NewBoCo Event Coordinator Jan Finlayson said the themes this year include resources and funding, branding and storytelling, growth and leadership, and the intersection of business and artificial intelligence and other technologies.
Among the AI sessions are “Using AI to grow your business,” and “From patents to pull-ups: Powering service businesses with AI.”
“I think the important thing that people will come away [with] if they’re a small business, [is] how they’re going to use AI to their benefit, take it to the next level,” Finlayson said. “How they can power their business in ways maybe they haven’t thought about, where it comes to forecasting, where it comes to marketing. … There’s so many things going on … that are constantly evolving and changing and I think we need to be right on top of it in order to make ourselves very relevant in the game.”
EntreFest is also introducing a pitch competition this year, Finlayson said. Five people will pitch; they will be notified Friday morning and then do their three-minute pitch that afternoon, she said.
The panel of judges include the three keynote speakers: Lyndsae’ Peele, a finance coach, author and advocate for Black wealth, Taufeek Shah, founder and CEO of West Des Moines-based Lola’s Fine Sauces and Erica Cole, a University of Iowa graduate and founder and CEO of No Limbits, an apparel brand for people with disabilities.
Awards include $7,500 for first place, $3,500 for second place, $1,000 for third place and a people’s choice award for $3,000, Finlayson said.
During the event, NewBoCo will also announce new programming, which will be piloted this fall.
“We have just been paying attention to where we see that we could best fill potential gaps or support the overall entrepreneurial ecosystem with programming,” Wilkins said.
For more information about EntreFest and how to sign up, click here.