Uncommon voices

“Not every great idea generator creating a billion-dollar company will be what society says they’ll look like. You can’t check the boxes when it comes to innovation.”

Janice Omadeke, The Mentor Method

“I love being an entrepreneur, and the only reason I have success at all is because of a dozen strangers that took me on as their mentee. Now I can pay it forward.”

Natasha Kirsch, The Grooming Project

“I believe we will only be able to better more entrepreneurs in Cincinnati, but we are also building the foundation to support more minority entrepreneurs across the country.”

William Thomas, MORTAR

“There’s not a lot of women who pitch… Latina women who pitch. Making that jump was hard for me to actually be confident enough to pitch to someone and say, like, ‘Hey, this is who I am.’ It took a lot of mentoring with different people… that’s kind of when it all switched: ‘I am an entrepreneur. I can do this.'”

Pauly Ramirez, 7Qubes

“Consider ‘hyping it up’ as allies advocating in every room. Consider ‘hyping up’ as completely overwhelming the existing biases with a mainstay of normalcy that flips skepticism into excitement. #thatshype”

Shelly Bell, Black Girl Ventures

“You know you have the right people handling things when in 45 minutes over pizza you can talk about a world issue, come up with a way to help, and start a new company all at once. How can you not be excited about a team like that?”

Edie Ramstad, Weave Got Maille

“To fuel startups, and the U.S. startup rate, founders need access to a variety of funding opportunities.”

Ross Baird, Kauffman Foundation Innovator-in-Residence

“As policymakers grapple with these difficult questions, two critical realities are too often forgotten amid the haze of fractious political debate – the connection between entrepreneurship and economic prosperity, and the importance of immigrants to American entrepreneurship.”

John Dearie, Center for American Entrepreneurship

“Entrepreneurship is urgent. The state must take a new approach to innovation and economic development. Lawmakers saw this need, and the Innovation Caucus was created.”

Melissa Roberts, Enterprise Center in Johnson County

“Diverse teams tend to be more effective, more profitable, and more likely to outperform less diverse organizations because their backgrounds give them a wider array of tools and talent. On the frontier of disruptive technologies, our diversity as a nation remains critical in giving us distinct advantages in the global marketplace.”

Miriam Rivera, Ulu Ventures

“If I were to totally rework education from the ground up, I would, from the very beginning, encourage this air of collaboration – learn to communicate, color outside the lines, facilitate curiosity, and draw from your resources. From a very early age, I would teach tolerance and acceptance.”

Riley Dotson, Northland CAPS