Inclusive Innovation: How We Shortchange Startups and Limit Innovative Impact
Start Date
16-10-2020 12:00 PM
End Date
16-10-2020 12:50 PM
Document Type
Presentation
Abstract
Entrepreneurs are problem-solvers and change-makers. They find a problem worth solving, and then mobilize the resources to solve it. These inherent entrepreneurial attributes are neither gendered nor racial. Entrepreneurship and innovation is biased toward action not stereotypes. And yet, the prevailing system of established regulations and societal norms make launching and scaling a business particularly challenging for minority and women entrepreneurs. Explicit and implicit belief systems and systemic and structural barriers affect every aspect of business success in both subtle and overt ways. These barriers must be addressed if we want all small businesses to thrive and grow. This is crucial because small businesses drive our economy, providing new jobs that increase employment. As employment grows so do tax revenues, which benefits local communities and local businesses. New ventures lift up not only individuals, but also their local communities and the US economy as a whole. New venture creation is a social good that must be open to all, encouraged, and advanced. Presently, access to the ecosystems necessary to survive and thrive as an entrepreneur are not open to all. Minorities and women continued to remain locked out. Why? In this workshop, we will discuss how unlocking access to this ecosystem has the potential to positively impact our society and our economy. And why we need to unleash this potential now more than ever.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Inclusive Innovation: How We Shortchange Startups and Limit Innovative Impact
Entrepreneurs are problem-solvers and change-makers. They find a problem worth solving, and then mobilize the resources to solve it. These inherent entrepreneurial attributes are neither gendered nor racial. Entrepreneurship and innovation is biased toward action not stereotypes. And yet, the prevailing system of established regulations and societal norms make launching and scaling a business particularly challenging for minority and women entrepreneurs. Explicit and implicit belief systems and systemic and structural barriers affect every aspect of business success in both subtle and overt ways. These barriers must be addressed if we want all small businesses to thrive and grow. This is crucial because small businesses drive our economy, providing new jobs that increase employment. As employment grows so do tax revenues, which benefits local communities and local businesses. New ventures lift up not only individuals, but also their local communities and the US economy as a whole. New venture creation is a social good that must be open to all, encouraged, and advanced. Presently, access to the ecosystems necessary to survive and thrive as an entrepreneur are not open to all. Minorities and women continued to remain locked out. Why? In this workshop, we will discuss how unlocking access to this ecosystem has the potential to positively impact our society and our economy. And why we need to unleash this potential now more than ever.
Speaker Information
Kate Jackson
Kate teaches design thinking, inclusive innovation, and the resilient entrepreneurial mindset. She also leads the college’s elevator pitch, social innovation and business venture pitch competitions.
Passionate about building inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems, she focuses on addressing barriers for women, people of color, people in rural communities, and people with disabilities. She believes expanding access for all entrepreneurs will help build more resilient communities, cultivate jobs skills, provide more tax revenues, and lift more people out of poverty. Helping lift and launch entrepreneurs regardless of place, race, or gender is not just the right thing to do it’s the smart thing to do. During the pandemic, Kate launched Mother Funders, LLC to support women, especially mothers, disproportionally affected by the crisis.
In her decades-long career at Accenture and Deloitte Consulting, she designed and implemented major change initiatives at both Fortune 500 companies and non-profits to improve performance and build greater resiliency. She has worked across multiple cultural contexts and industry verticals from the west coast to the east coast to the midwest to Asia and Europe, making change happen in large, established organizations. She learned that taking a human-centered approach (i.e., focusing on and working with the people impacted) is what makes change stick.
Kate received her BA and MA from The University of Chicago and her MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.