Want to Host Your Own GEWKC 2022 Session, Panel or Workshop? Here’s How

Kansas City’s business community is invited to submit sessions for this year’s celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week – Kansas City (Nov. 14-20, 2022).The community is invited to submit their session idea through Aug. 28 at gewkc.org.

“Kansas City and entrepreneurship go hand in hand, and watching the unified ripple of Global Entrepreneurship Week across our city and across the world is inspiring,” said Michael Carmona, network builder at KCSourceLink. KCSourceLink has organized Global Entrepreneurship Week in Kansas City since 2008.

“The weeklong event celebrates and elevates everyone who helps advance entrepreneurship in Kansas City – our entrepreneurs, small business owners, policymakers, investors, innovators, makers, civic leaders and community builders. Together, they create the heart of Kansas City.”

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Global Entrepreneurship Week is an international celebration that for the past 15 years has inspired millions of people to explore their potential as entrepreneurs and connect with their local entrepreneurship ecosystems. Founded in Kansas City by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2008, the event has since expanded to more than 180 countries.

“Kansas City hosts one of the largest celebrations of GEW in the world,” added Chanté Keller, network convenor at KCSourceLink and chair of the GEWKC planning committee. “Every year, even during the pandemic, thousands attend GEWKC to connect and learn. The real-world information, insights and experience that presenters share at these sessions is great for anyone who is interested in starting a business, growing a business or advancing entrepreneurship in the KC region.”  

To help represent the diversity of Kansas City’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, this year’s sessions are grouped into five tracks:

• Startups

• Scalers

• Makers, Artists and Creators

• Inclusive Community Builders

• Youthpreneurs

This year, a limited number of sessions will be curated into rich programming hosted at centralized base camp. The remainder of sessions will be hosted at venues – in person or virtually – across the KC metro to help shine the spotlight on local businesses and their impact on and in KC communities..

All ideas are welcome: individual speakers and presenters, headliners, panels, workshops, happy hours, site visits (open houses, coffee crawls), etc. Topics that focus on providing additional knowledge and skill-sharing with the community have the best chance to be selected.

Ideas span the gamut. Here are just a few topic ideas that have been well attended at past GEWKCs:

• the best business advice I ever got

• how to tell effective stories on social media

• marketing and sales for artists/makers/creatives 

• solopreneurship 101

• meet KC’s entrepreneurship ecosystem builders

• how to fund your business (e.g., with no money, bootstrapping, a small business loan, government contract, first-round of equity funding, first customers)

• advice on how to start a business with a lawyer and an accountant

• how to scale your business

• what entrepreneurs should know about X (trademarks, copyrights, intellectual property, equity funding, hiring vs. contracting, etc.)

• how X can help entrepreneurs (e.g., communities, cities, states, universities/colleges, banks, corporations)

• how to hire and support a diverse workforce 

Interested presenters and session hosts are invited to attend the following workshops for tips and guidance to help create a quality proposal:

• Tuesday, Aug. 2, 3 – 4:30 p.m. – Register for Aug. 2 

• Friday, Aug. 12, 9:30 – 11 a.m. – Register for Aug. 12

More information about how to submit a session is on the “Call for Sessions” page on the GEWKC website. The deadline for submissions is 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 28. Submissions will be evaluated by the GEWKC planning committee, and accepted presenters will be notified in September. GEWKC will open for registration in October.