Welcome to the 2024 Supplier Diversity Conference. How is everyone doing today? The theme of this year's event is Inspire 2024. When you think of the word inspire, what comes to mind? Don't be shy, I don't bite, I swear. Motivate dreaming. I like that. Dreaming, creativity, innovation, change. One more excitement. Well that hit it on the head. We are here for an exciting two day event. Now allow me to introduce myself to you. You're probably going, who is this woman up here talking to us? My name is Dominic Murphy. I am the founder of an agency called The Right Method. We're a full service creative agency that specializes in amplifying brands. And we are also here today. I am as your MC, so I'm very excited to be here with you. My experience in MCing events goes back. I'm a three time Emmy award winning television personality turned agency founder and we are so excited to spotlight diverse small local businesses. How many of you are in the room today? Raise your hand. Look around, raise them high. Hold them up. Hold them up. So I want to know what do you all hope to gain today at this event? Value? You're gonna get a lot of that, I can assure you. Value what else? Connections, opportunity, resources and more, right? So I encourage everyone in the room. A lot of times we come to these events with a plus one, right? We have someone with us. I encourage you to go to different tables, meet different people, because while you're here over the next two days, you're going to meet so many incredible people. If you allow yourself to do that, as they say, your net worth, your network. No, your net worth is your network. We've heard that, right? Your net worth is your network. So I encourage you to get out, meet people, explore, et cetera. So as we kick off the event, I want to get some excitement in the room. So who's excited? Who is ready to elevate a al right, so as we kick this off, I'm going to grab my clicker and we have a little video presentation for you. All right. Give it up for the year at the University of. So without further ado, and I refused to bring her on the stage until everyone is on their feet cheering for this woman, our lead, our fearless leader. Okay, Victoria Daniels. How many of you know Vicki? If you don't, I encourage you over the course of the next two days to meet this woman. She's incredible. She's amazing. And she has been working nonstop the last 5.5 months to put this event together. Okay. So without further ado, our Chief Supplier, Diversity Officer here at the University of Delaware, Victoria Daniels of Good morning everyone. Thank you for coming today. I appreciate you. For those of you that know me, you know, I'm going to get emotional because I can't help myself because I love what I do and I love you guys, and I love the Lord. We have a wonderful program for you, Two days, 24 classes, a wonderful plenary session that's going to be moderated by the fabulous Michelle Snow. I'm going to bring Christina Cash. Christina, are you, are you here? Eastern Minority Supply Development Council graciously partner with us to offer four supplier diversity practitioner workshops for my peers that do what I do and others who are interested in what I do. If you really don't understand what I do, I'm a different type of supply diversity professional. I just don't care about buying from diverse and small businesses. I want to help you grow and develop your business. I want to give you all the tips and tricks and things that no one has ever told you. I want to help you thrive, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking. We have head shots tomorrow, 10-2 You sign up, you go over the information to be out there. Eastern Minority Supply Development Council certification is here. Who else is here? Some of the other folks that provide certification. If you need one on one assistance and it's only for one on one assistance, you can go up to the front desk and sign off and they'll have their availability there when they're able to see folks. I'm trying to think of anything else that I want to tell you guys that's of importance right now, other than I'm really happy that you're here and thank you for coming. I'm going to bring up my wonderful boss, John Long. He's our EDP. Coo. Say a few words. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, morning. Alright. I think maybe should serve espresso instead of coffee to get this thing going. I've got prepared remarks, but I don't know if I'm gonna use them. I'm just going to talk from the soul. We started this journey with Vicki a little over two years ago. It was a national search. We got the best that there is. We had a vision. A vision was to create an ecosystem. To give everybody an opportunity, an opportunity to compete, an opportunity to get a piece of that American pie. And I've said this before, and people have given. It's not about come to Vicki and I get a contract. You may never get a contract at the University of Delaware. That's not what this is about. This is to give you the tools and the training to thrive in the environment. To have an opportunity, whether it's in the state of Delaware, whether it's in Massachusetts, whether it's in North Carolina, we don't care. And it'd be great if it's at the University of Delaware. But we're an institution of higher learning. We're trying to leverage all those assets of our entrepreneur program. We've got tremendous faculty that are experts in various fields. We have administrators with decades of experience. As Vicki said, it's to teach and to display our goal when all things get done. At the end of tomorrow, you found this valuable because this is an annual event, And each year, we'll get better, and we'll get bigger, and we'll get more productive. And we'll continue to show results, and I think Vicki has shown great results. And before I forget, I do want to thank Vicki. She has done this a lot on her own, but not some of our staff has helped her. We've leveraged, again, our staff, Abby Pyle, Sharon Turner. There's a bunch of people behind the scenes that you don't see that enabled Vicki to get this program off the ground. And she's collaborated across the university. I know she's now well known in various communities across the state, and that's intentional, as well as in Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and New York. Again, we want breath and distance and we want to create an environment where everybody has an opportunity to win and we don't want to shut anybody out. Again, I want to thank some people. I do want to thank our sponsors. This stuff doesn't happen for free. There's been some help and we certainly appreciate that. But again, I hope at the end of your time, you take advantage of the classes. You give us good constructive feedback. Did you find them good? Did you find you want more of this? Less of that? And I really wish we would have done this. And then we'll adjust and this is a journey. You know, every journey starts with a step. I remember last year, a gentleman approached me and said, you haven't done anything since your first roll out Well, my comment at that point was we didn't get where we were in a year and we're not going to get out of where we are in a year. So every journey starts with the first step. And I can tell you on behalf of President Asanas and our Board of Trustees, we are committed to doing this. And I think you're seeing our commitment today. And we will continue the journey with you and we will celebrate your success and we'll work together. And we're going to partner and we're going to move the ball. And move the ball, and move the ball, but we're only going to do it together. So again, thank you for taking your time to come out today. I hope you find it valuable. We put in a lot of work. I would say Vicki put it in a lot of work. I didn't. Hopefully, the educational sessions are a benefit. Again, we're trying. I don't want to get too catchy, but you know there's a phrase I've heard my whole life. You can give a man a fish and he eats once. You can teach him how to fish and he eats forever. So that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to give the tools where you can go out forever and not just come here and get one contract and that's the end of it. So thank you and welcome to the University of Delaware. Christina Cash. Are you in the audience? I don't think she's here yet. All right. We move on to the next person. I'd like to bring up, such a wonderful person, such a great partner. When I came to Delaware, one of the first people I reached out to, I said, hmm, let's see, who should I speak with? Who should I go to? Since I'm new to the state, I reached out to none other than Ava White. She is my peer on such a higher level. She's a State. She's the State Office Supply Diversity. I like to bring up Chevon. She is our platinum sponsor. She's been very supportive of the program. She's helped me understand the ins and outs of businesses within Delaware because I came out of New York, so things are a little different. Chicago's a little different, Philly is a little different, Seattle's a little different, but Chevon has been a wonderful friend. Come on up. Shevon. Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Vicki. It's not hard because of the force. You are in this space. You are a champion in this space, and I appreciate everything that you do to say that we're peers. Yes. But I look up to you. You are a great mentor and I appreciate everything that you've done for the university, the state, and the businesses in our state today is not lost on me. I'm looking and I'm very grateful and thankful for this day because we all know, and we all heard, they're eliminating diversity programs. And to have a commitment from my alma mater to continue in this space to educate and to bring together everyone in the business community. Because we know we just don't support businesses, we support people with families, and that goes back to our communities. So I'm grateful to be at the state of Delaware, the Office of Supplier Diversity, Delaware Division of Small Business, and to be able to give back in this space. And so thank you, Vicki, and every Supplier Diversity professional that is here and all the businesses who are here to come to get this information, because information is power. And I hope you have a great, great, great conference. And I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of you and supporting you and networking with you. Thank you. So John alluded to some of our sponsors, if you bear with me, I'd like to take a few minutes to recognize some of them is IMC in the building. Imc Construction, White and Turner. Where are my friends of Fisher Scientific is in our wonderful Delaware SBDC. I know they're here. Yes. So the next portion of our event will be our plenary session, which I'm really excited about. You're going to have a moderator called Michelle Snow from her wonderful company with Snow, she's out of Philadelphia. Michelle, come on up right. Get there. Some excited folks in the building today. I know we're not gonna be quiet. We came all the way from all over Delaware, Philly, New Jersey, Texas, Florida. I mean, come on and make some noise for yourself. Listen, I had to put on an extra lotion today and put gas in the car and make sure I was up early and drank extra water for you today, or we're about to be excited now. Listen. Wherever I go, I make noise. Okay. So let's just make it happen. So Vicki, if you're allowed me for about 90 seconds, I want you all to turn to your neighbor and say, you look good. Thank you for coming today. Yes, Yes. Come on, tell them you look good. Thank you for coming today. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Now, I always love to survey the room. I just like to see how people start their day. Okay. So we're going to find out whose team are you on? All right. So my 04:00 A.M. and 05:00 A.M. People, you got up early this morning to get here today. Where are you at and make some noise? Come on. 04:00 A.M. and 05:00 A.M. You all are so special, You get up extra early so you won't be late. Then there's another crew I'd like you to. You're probably about in my house. If you got up maybe about 06:00 or 07:00 where are you at? Where you were? My six. Oh, come through here at 06:00 A.M. Own it. Own it now, there's one more crew. I love you too 'cause you hear you made it okay. You got up about 08:00 this morning. Where are you at this morning? Nobody's going at me. Yes, a couple of honest people, a couple of honest people before I bring on this incredible panel of experts that will certainly lighten your day, lift your load, provide you with information. There's a story they used to say it was a blackbird, but I do know has anybody ever been home in your house and you were sleeping so good? I mean a sleep where a little something come down your face and it felt so good. And then you hear these birds outside. Anybody had that experience? You hear bird just trip, making a lot of noise. And so there's a story that says why do the birds sing in the morning? And one theory is that they made it through the night. And we, as business owners, people of color, minority business owners, how many of you remember a night experience where there was a predator that was coming after you? There was a check that was due and you did not have it in the bank. There was an employee that had to be reprimanded. There was a contract that had to be completed. There was a proposal that was due. And baby, you were not ready. Did you survive the night though? Did you survive the night? So I'm here today to bring on some incredible experts who will help you to not only get through the night, but to survive the night. Help me welcome them as they come up one by one. So panelists, please stand in your seats. I'd like to bring forward Ayana Khan, Mike Bowman on me, Duval and Christopher C. J. Bell give it up. As they come forward. I see a lot of people traveled all across the states. Philadelphia. You made it here today? Uh huh. Uh huh. Jersey. You made it here today? Uh huh. Uh huh. All right. As they come forward, Texas, Did you make it here today? Come through here, Texas. I love Texas. Did y'all bring me some steaks or some ribs or a pocket of beef or something, Because I'm not on that vegan life yet. I'm on my way, but I haven't quite made it. All right. We're going to be able to hear them from here is their microphone, all right? So we're going to get started with that being said, I'm going to give you all 15 more seconds. There's somebody at your table who was itching to give a business card out. You've got about 12 seconds to quickly pull out your business card and share it at your table. If you've got about 11 seconds left, don't miss this opportunity. Go ahead and share it. Share it. Share it. Share it. Ten more seconds. Say hi. I wanted to give you my card. Is it on 9 seconds? Come through here. All right. You got about 8 seconds left. 7 seconds quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. You can go to Linked in and share your scan code. You've got 5 seconds left, 432. All right. Now, last piece of instructions. Our amazing experts want to know that you saw them today. So see those people out there taking pictures. We want more of that, Al right. Take those selfies, put yourself in a couple of photos, and get our panelists. So without further to do, let's go ahead and hear from our panelists, our experts. And there's one piece of information that I want you to be clear about as we go into this 30 minute conversation. The University of Delaware has chosen significant leaders who are making a thriving impact among minority black brown businesses, right, And beyond. So they brought them here today, one to tell you what's working, right. Hey, minority business owners, people of color, here's what's working. Let's do more of this, because some of you are doing a great work. Here is where we see where the train gets derailed. Right where the plane has to stop and pull up. They're going to give you some strategies about what are some things broken. And clearly by the end of the conversation, we are going to talk about a few solutions. And then finally, we're going to wrap up by allowing you to share your input and let us know what was impactful and of course to ask some questions. All right. Now I do a lot of 30 seconds wrap up. Women, don't be offended, okay? Because I want to do my job well and get you back out here for the workshops. Is that all right? If it's okay, take boom, Shaka, Laka. All right. I just wanted to make sure. Okay. Now Ayana, would you please be first and introduce yourself to our wonderful audience? Good morning everyone. I want to say, first and foremost, thank you to the University of Delaware. Thank you to Vicki for hosting this amazing event and this amazing opportunity to network. Okay? 'cause networking will open doors that your resume will not. My name is Ana Khan. I am the founder president and CEO of the Delaware Black Chamber of Commerce. Voted best Chamber of the year 2023 by the National Black Chamber. Yes. Okay. We are the fastest growing chamber in the country. We have five members away from 700 members come through here. All right. Who is going to be the 700 member? Okay. Can't wait to celebrate that business here in the state of Delaware. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. University of Delaware, Vicki and all that made this possible. My name is Jerome Duval. I am the Vice President and Chief Operating officer of Verbosity, which is a black owned technology company. We own our own proprietary technology, and so very interested in sharing some of our best practices, things that have worked. I also ran into Vicki, we were colleagues. I ran the governors of New York MWBE program. And so I would love to share a lot of the things that I've learned. Now that I'm now in the private sector, I'm now seeing things very differently, especially for small businesses and the challenges that we face. So, looking forward to the discussion. Thank you. We good morning. I'm Mike Bowman. I am with the University of Delaware. I have a couple roles there. I'm in the Office of Economic Innovation Partnership. There I'm two things, I'm the CEO, President of the Delaware Technology Park, where we have a lot of start up companies, seven buildings, and about 200 companies over the years. We helped start from scratch. I'm with the right crowd. The second thing is I'm the State Director of the Small Business Development Center. Our operations are out back here. Also, we have a program called Apex Accelerator, which does government contracting training. So what do we do? We cover the entire state. It does not matter what your business is. Retail, rural tech, government contracting, manufacturing. We help it all. We help start, we help scale, and we help sustain. And we'll be talking a lot, some of the details as we go forward. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I'm gonna try again. Good morning. Good morning. My name is C. J. Bell. I'm the Director of Economic Development for Newcastle County and I also run the largest young professional based organization in the state of Delaware. Focus on retaining young talent in the state of Delaware. What do I do for Office of Economic Development for the county? We simply try to focus on the missing middle. The missing middle is businesses two years or older that are at that pivot point of make or break. So we have a lot of organizations or a lot of support resources for start ups. We're getting there in terms of large scale organizations, what the county is trying to focus on is the missing middle. So you'll hear me talk about grow CC fund as well, and a few other initiatives we have specifically focus on supplier diversity. So thank you for the time. Thank you, Vicki. And thank you. University of Delaware, my alma mater as well. All right. Excellent, Excellent. I could tell he was just comfortable with a microphone. He's like, hey, good morning everybody, right? That's a born public speaker. So let's go ahead and go to work. Let's start with Ayana as the head of the Delaware Black Chamber of Commerce, can you quantify the impact small and diverse businesses have on the local region? Well, small and diverse businesses are making major contributions. Per the SBA, we have 44% of small businesses that are contributing to the economy. We have the same small businesses that are employing 61 million individuals. 61 million, okay. Those numbers are significant. Diverse businesses are contributing to the economy, so we need to give them the space and the opportunities to do so, because without the resources, our economy is not going to function. Small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy. So I think number one, that's the major contribution. Creating jobs, creating innovative opportunities. So we need to give them those, make those paths clear for them to provide those jobs. Create those jobs and those opportunities. Yeah. I mean, the fact that we are the sleeping giant, helping families thrive because we're employing them, I think that's pretty significant. Let's talk to Mike. Mike, in your position, can you discern if these businesses contribute to a resilient and inclusive economy and if so, how and why? Well, it's absolutely true, you know, because you're here for this reason. 99% of the people in small businesses are small businesses and 80% are either women or minority owners. So we are the right crowd right here. You do make the right impact. I can tell you from the SBDC just a few numbers. We do this every year. We talk to 800 companies, 800 clients, 2,500 jobs supported. They raise $25,000,000 of capital every year. We helped start 45 new businesses every year. This is year after year. We're 41 years old. The impact is enormous. Now what you do in terms of the day to day with a consumer, we all know small businesses. As a consumer, that's very important. We can't live without you. But why are you here today? It's what John Long said. It's to get to the bigger fish. How can we present yourself to get some of the bigger purchasing companies? And that's what you're going to learn today. But you got to come prepared. What's your value proposition? Do you know technology? Can you use the technology to get in compete? What's your differentiation? So there's a lot of small businesses, as I said. But you've got to get to your space to fit that opportunity, and I hope you learned that today. Excellent, excellent. I'm going to jump right over to Jerome. Okay. First of all, let me just say this before I give Jerome his question. Is New York here today? Yes. All right. Okay. And do we have Washington DC. Here today? All right. Okay. Okay. I wanted to make sure I got you in here. Jerome, you've worked in Ohio and New York. And in your experience, what positive change have you seen diverse and small businesses bring to the community? Excellent question. So one of the things we know is that small businesses are multifaceted and they impact the economic, social, and cultural fabric of every community. So when you think about the local economy and you think about the tax impact you have on the local economy, those dollars and I'm putting on my economic development hat, those dollars are directly impacting that community. In terms of the social services, the infrastructure, and your role in the community is extremely important in terms of its impact on the local economy. The other thing that small businesses do, that most people don't think about is innovation, right? Small businesses are very innovative. The reason is because you are lightweight, you're nimble, and you can adapt. That's good, right? And so our company was just awarded the million dollar round table from a public health entity that we supported. And we won the contract over very large companies. You know why? Because they couldn't scale fast enough and they lost their innovation. We were QR codes on boxes to scale this solution that they were trying to figure out how to adapt their technology, right? And so the innovation that small businesses bring. And I'm going to tell you another thing that I hope that you walk away with is strategic partnerships. This is so important for small businesses because, one, it allows you to scale, it allows you to compete. It allows you to really diversify your resources to be able to position your company to become not just a prime but a leader in your industry. We see this all the time where they say, right, certified but unqualified, small but too small. Procurement rules are written to lock out everybody sitting in the, we'll say it. So what you have to do, because what happens is when they write procurement rules, and I'm telling you this because I wrote them. Mm hm. I spent time in the Senate as well. That's right. When I left New York State to help reauthorize 15, the law that governs the MWB program. One of the things we have to do, and I hope, and I'm sure Delaware and Vicki is already thinking about this, is when you're writing those procurement rules, you have to identify ways to give advantages to small businesses. You have to because the the feel is what they call equal but unfair. If you're out there, you know what I'm talking about, H, equal but unfair. And what we did when we ran a similar conference like this is we actually gave a 15% bump for new businesses one to five years. See what just happened. Now that 15% separates you to be able to position yourself, to now move into the prime role because they're always writing rules. They're looking for past performance. How many of you have written RFPs and they're asking for past performance and you're like, well, I can't go after that one. Mm hm. Well, strategic partnerships are so important. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But I want to pass the mice on. There's three things about strategic partners, partnerships. So hold on, I'll come back to you. Excellent. All right, give my applause for that. I'm ready. I'm ready for it. So we have one more question left in this part of the segment, then we're going to really turn the heat up a bit. All right? So CJ, this is a twofold question. How do they, and how can these businesses positively impact economic development in Newcastle County? Such a low question. I'm gonna piggy back off what Jerome said, Strategic partnerships, right? And it's not just the small businesses, but it's the organizations that support those small businesses as well, right? One thing that we have or one thing that I try to really push is not to reinvent the wheel. Delaware is already sideload enough, right? So how can we better partner with organizations supporting the same target audience to better service the greater good? One thing, Anna, right there, that's like my best friend. She texts me. If we're not getting back to a business under her chamber fast enough, she's right at me, you know, and I love that and I appreciate it. And that's one thing that we've been able to bounce back and forth on, how can they positively impact the economic development in Newcastle County. We need our contracts that we give out to start looking more like the population we live in. Right? Mm hmm. I'm saying again, we need our contracts to look like the population we live in. That's how you create an equitable type of economic or ecosystem. So that's the biggest thing I think. What else can we do? It comes down to changing our bid limit laws. I, I'm still in that percentage, the one to five years. That's one thing I noticed. I took this role in June of 2023, so I'm fairly new to it. But one thing that I noticed off Rip was 20% of your score was on past performance. If I never got to this level, if I never had to access to capital to even apply for this bid, how can I win? So you do have to partner up, right? But we also have to partner together to better service this target audience. So I'm looking forward to getting into more solutions in this conversation as well. All right, that's part one. So let's go ahead and turn the volume up another whole level. These are excellent answers and beginning to get some introduction. And I hope that you all are listening to these questions and answers so that you can think about how it directly impacts you. So I want to talk about the problem, right, the challenges and the barriers, right? Because we have to be honest. We've already seen with rules and laws how so much has changed. What are the main challenges these businesses, black brown, minority businesses, and beyond impede? Excuse me. What are the main challenges facing these businesses that impede their ability to positively impact their communities? All right, Who wants to go first? Okay. There it's two main problems that I've seen access to. Capital Paperwork. Paperwork. Paperwork. Paperwork. Right. Too many times have I had businesses come up and want to do business with the county, but not aware of the contracts we have, are not aware of the qualifications needed to even, you know, jump, put your foot in the door, right? One thing that we're trying to do and this is new, is we created a supplier diversity office. So Helen, Helen Foster, you're in the building. Just wave your hand. She might be right outside of the building, but Helen Foster is our new SB program coordinator. Right. And a part of her job is to ensure, one, that we have qualified businesses to even put themselves out there, and then two on the back end, we're supposed to make sure that they have the scoring requirements better to even win those bid. So the two things that I've noticed is lack of access to capital and the paperwork qualifications. Excellent. All right. Yeah, I want to add to that the paperwork is definitely, it can be a barrier, right. Because when you look at these procurement opportunities, it will put you to sleep at night just reading through those hundreds of pages. For small businesses, you definitely need to partner with the larger firms that are on your same platform to assist with the paperwork 'cause it's discouraging the procurement process. I think too, with the state of Delaware, we just need to do a better job being equitable and inclusive. We haven't we're not quite there yet, and that's why our contracting numbers are super low for African Americans specifically. So, just breaking the laws, you know, what the law make is getting them involved in making sure that this procurement process is equitable. Far too many times these black businesses, they're here, right? Utilization is super low. So making it inclusive, putting the laws in place, making sure there's minority goals in place. The Delaware Black Chamber has been pushing this since our inception. We have to ensure that there are minority goals, so that minorities are included on all contracts, rather than saying we don't exist, because we do exist, we are here. The Delaware Black Chamber have over 1,000 individuals in all innovative spaces that are looking for opportunity. But when you look at the RFP process and they're asking for all these things, and your first born is like a determinant, a barrier, because this system has been in place since the beginning of time to keep us out. So we need our lawmakers in place to dismantle and restructure the procurement process. And we need corporations to step up, because this is incorporation capital of the world. And the corporations need to step up and ensure that you're doing business with diverse businesses and not with the usual friends that you have, but thinking outside the box and looking outside, well, Mike is definitely going to go next. And CJ gave a good 0.1 of the tips that I want to make sure that for those of you who are new, like you're on your road to $1 million. While there are many multi million dollar businesses here, my suggestion to you, because of this challenge that they're presenting, is how often are you just practicing? You know, you don't have the informational understanding, but you're just practicing learning and get your confidence up to fill out these proposals and these reports. Yes, Mike. Judge. So what you should know, there are resources out there to help you through these problems, and your job is to help find them. So when we had the covid experience and the SBA came out with idle loans and PPP loans, which you all know about. Many people could not get them. Why did they not get them? They weren't prepared financially. They did not have a bank account, they did not have tax records. You cannot go into the system without those things. What we did over the last few years, there's a program called Community Navigators which you'll learn about and Ions part of it. The SBDC won the position of hub for the state. And we deployed ambassadors, which we call spokes, to go into the community deeper than we've ever gone before. To go find the areas that were not receiving help. They couldn't get out, they didn't know where to go, and they felt very lonely. Being an entrepreneur is lonely enough. But without the access to capital and access to financial literacy, that has to get you ready to go there, you can't get going. So this program has been enormous in terms of our workload has doubled. But there are resources there, and the ambassadors that spokes the SBDC itself are here to help you train. It may be you have to learn quick books. Maybe you have to learn cybersecurity. Maybe you have to learn e commerce. These are all critical to your Business, to reach other people where they are, or to engage the larger purchasing organizations. So please avail yourself of the organizations that are here to serve you. Sbdc being one. There are others, but Ana's organization is certainly a very important one. We have to stop making excuses. That is what it really comes down to. This is not rocket science, This is really simple guys. New York State has one of the best models in New York City that Delaware could look at, right under my leadership, we did $3,000,000,000 a year to small and brown businesses. And that was scraping the surface, right? 3 billion a year. So there are models out there so Delaware doesn't have to reinvent the will. Right. New York State has a 30% utilization goal. All 97 agencies and authorities had to come to my office and check that box. Right. And yes, most of them wanted waivers. I had a no waiver rule unless you couldn't find it. And that was hard to convince me because we have over 10,000 certified businesses in New York State. So Delaware already has the footing to position themselves. Right. The other thing is let's stop talking about what other people need to be doing. Let me talk about what we can be doing for ourselves, all right? Given to us. Right? One of the things we have to do is we have to move beyond capability statements. Did y'all hear me? We heard move beyond capability statements. Right. How many of you by a raise of hands when you look at a strategic partnership doing NDA? Oh yes. Oh, it's about to get healed up. So that's one. How many of you ever do a teaming agreement? Mm hmm. Let me tell you something. If I'm coming to a table with a small business and I'm dealing with a behemoth, if you don't start there, you're unseasoned. And it makes me question, not that you can't do the work, but it tells me that you haven't built the structure to engage in the conversation in a way to protect your own interest. This is good. Did you hear me? You have to protect your own interests. And then the third thing is marketing. I don't know how many websites I don't went to where people are trying to go after. And I'll tell you, when I went to the private sector, the first opportunity I went after was a $27,000,000 opportunity as a prime, there you go, 27 million. Now we didn't win it, right? But guess what? That state agency know who we are. That's right. And now we're engaged in a bigger opportunity. Mm hm. So sometimes it's about how you position yourself and introduce yourself to these state and government. And sometimes, you know, you're not going to win because you don't have what, the past performance. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to compete. Clean up your marketing strategy, right? Make sure you have an NDA. If you need one, call me. I'll give you a template. If you need a teaming agreement, call me. I'll give you a template. It changes the conversation. I'll stop there because you can tell I'm pretty passionate about this issue. We have what it takes to compete. The only way you can put yourself in the position of confidence, it's to have the tools in place. When someone reaches out, like they did to us the other day, on a centralized contract. That's a ten year contract. I think it's ridiculous, that states can award a ten year contract to a select group, right? Because none of those groups are us. Because you have to have the past performance and you have to hit certain thresholds, 1 million, 5 million, 10 million, 20 million. To take care of ourselves and put our best foot forward and leverage. The resources are real, y'all the resources are real. Looking forward to the conversation and we just getting started. Exactly. So that's why I want to just keep this mike hot for just a moment. Okay, So let's make sure we can evaluate where we are. We're talking about the barriers so that we can cross over to solutions. So he asked the audience how many of you are using in NDA. I know that most of you know what that means, but in 12 seconds what does that mean? An NDA is a non disclosure agreement. It protects your intellectual property in your engagement and disclosure of certain information. That's as simple as an NDA. Right? And so why is that important? Because well, one of the once you know, okay, you want to answer that. Okay, so once you know the game, you realize that you might think your partner with someone. And it's exclusive. It's never exclusive. They're talking to five other companies. Mm hm. And they're leveraging information that you're providing them. So what it does is really just protects, you know, people only do business with people that they trust and that they know. It helps to level the playing field a little bit and you've got to make sure that you're engaging with people that allow you to add value to that deal. And I'll stop there. Okay. Ayana has got the next point. Okay. All right. Teaming agreement was the next one. Okay. All right. Who wants to talk about the teaming agreement outside of Jerome? Mm hmm. Anybody else? Want to take a tech? Okay. All right. Go for it. I was trying not to make it the Drome show but you can tell I like the mike. So teaming agreements are very important because what is the one thing that happens when someone uses a small business and get an opportunity because of you, because they needed an MWBE to hit a threshold, right? And then all of a sudden you don't hear from them or they don't use your information. Got the deal. And unchanged the terms. Yes, they did raise your hands. How many of you have experienced that? Mm hm. Mm hm. It's not pretty too. I like her y, We're going to church up here. Well, a teaming agreement will protect you. A teaming agreement will specify the rules of engagement. If someone is calling you and saying that they want to use you as a partner to hit MWBE goal, first thing you should ask them is absolutely, here's my capability, here's my federal tax ID number. And the next step in our process is to put together an NDA and a teaming agreement. And they're going to be light team agreement. Yeah, a teaming agreement because what we're gonna do is we're going to identify the opportunity, we're going to identify the value that I'm bringing and what the cost of that deal is. Right. And so what you're really trying to do is protect your interests. And I see brother out here from Dallas. Y'all need to talk to this brother because Raise your hand, brother, please. Okay. There you go. All right. Because he knows this stuff, right? And so it's very important. But you don't have to recreate the will, right? Hit me up on linked in and I'm going to send you the templates and all you do is fill in the blanks. Does that make sense? Mm hm. Excellent. Absolutely. Mike, I see you with the microphone. Did you want to share something? Now, I want to bring up one last point which the University of Delaware, Delaware Technology Park and Discover Bank actually are engaged in. Our newest building on Star Campus is the Fin Tech Innovation Hub. It has a mission. The mission is to help solve the financial equity and health problems of the population, particularly the low to moderate income population of this country, which is the biggest problem we probably have, period. There are companies working to develop services and products in this space. The whole 100,000 square foot building has digital capability, academic capabilities, start ups, non profits, all aimed in that direction. And at the end of March, we're opening an incubator which is subsidized by some of the taxpayer benefits of new market tax credits for helping D, LMI company support organizations move in there. We're also doing a cohort of companies called Cafe Center for Advancing Financial Equity. These are companies across the country. Some are Delaware. Some are not coming in for ten weeks to improve their game, to get better at a lot of the things you've heard about, how do I pitch better? How do I access better? What do I don't know? Give me a broader network. The network is really important and all of you have problems with networks because you just have a small organization. How do I know anybody we want to up that game? So I wanted you to know that the university is very bound on helping problem like financial equity in Delaware and across the state. And Mike, you mentioned a program in your earlier part of your conversation. What was their program? Just to reiterate it, Judge. So the program is called Cafe. The one the first one that you the first one is the Fintech Innovation Hub is the building, and in the building is an incubator called Growth Stage, and also what's going to be cafe. All the resources are there for this purpose of helping companies working on the low to moderate income space. Judge, can you explain to them what Fintech is? So Fin Tech, so you know what the bank is. Well, take it off the bank and call it unbanked. Everything is on your cell phone. To do any transaction you want to do, you can save, you can spend, you know, that part. You can also transact anything. You can buy cars, stocks, houses. My assistant in my office bought a house site unseen. That's Fintech. Fintech has the ability to use digital technology to transact everything. That's why I said earlier, your use of computers or use of your phone, the knowledge to use these tools, are going to be very important to scale your business. Joe mentioned that. And that's very important. You're going to have to move out of your comfort zone to learn some new things. There are organizations to help you do that. We've invested a lot of time talking about structured operations, being ready and staying ready. Having your insurance, making some noise, having good marketing, right? So there are some other issues that we experience as minority business owners. Like for example, we're finding that there's this huge problem with not getting people to come to work where anybody have the problem where your people just don't show up, that you call for an interview and they just don't show up. Anybody having the problem where your people have come to work intoxicated, have anyone seen that experience, right? Or people are doing some really disgusting behaviors online and they say, well, it's my private business, right? But your private business affects my brand, Okay? And we're also dealing with the mortality rate of our black women and we're not being able to have healthy babies, right? So we have issues beyond filling out paperwork, our confidence of filling out paperwork. So I'm going to ask Ana to go first and then CJ and say, well, how are we dealing with those personal crises? And what are some examples of what your organizations or your networks have been doing? Yep, so for us at the Dollar Black Chamber, we definitely look at a holistic look for the business owner. So we're addressing all the issues. We're talking health care. We have our first minority healthcare summit at the Chase Center on April 16 to discuss the high mortality rates, to discuss the disparities when it comes to cancer and all the things that are affecting our demographic. We're talking about small business owners that are uninsured or underinsured because they just can't afford it. Because healthcare is like unaffordable and unattainable. So we're partnering with the US Department of Health and Human Services this spring to bring that summit to discuss these disparities and bring doctors that look like us to the table to discuss solutions, right? We are a solution based organizations. We're addressing the disparities and finding solutions for them. There's a housing crisis. Housing also unattainable, Unaffordable, right here in the state of Delaware, we are 22,000 units short. When it comes to affordable housing, it's insane. I have a daughter that just graduated college, believe it or not, and she's at home. She and she works for the state, cannot afford to move. He's having a housing crisis, right? Yes. She stay right at home. Stay right here, and save your coins because it's unaffordable for us, and this is affecting the black and brown community at a large rate. There are so many issues, but I want to encourage each and every one of you to get involved with advocacy. Get to know your lawmakers, your state and local reps, get to know those folks, build a relationship so we can get legislation in place to enact change because we're not going to move the needle any other way. Anything else is just talk. We need bills in place. So right now we're working with representative Bush to get a guaranteed loan program for underserved business owners, right? Because access to capital is a hot topic. It's forever been a hot topic. But we want to see a bill in place where the state has some skin in the game because we have a healthy budget and we have recommendations and commitments for everything from clean air to schools. We need a guaranteed loan program for minorities. So we're looking into that and working with the State of Delaware, Office of Supply Diversity, Chevon White. If you don't know Chevon, get to know her. Everyone should be certified at this point, right? Because like we said, you have to stay ready. So get your certifications in place. Right now, they're building out a portal, or getting ready to build out a portal to streamline the certification process. So now there's no excuses. We already saw that the pandemic was an exercise in documentation. So get it together now, because like we said several times, there are organizations like us, like the SBA, SBDC, that are here to assist with all of it a little. Sure. We've got we have about seven 8 minutes statement. Mm hmm. I want to make this very clear. Certification is not a business plan or a business strategy. It's a step in the process. Don't think that because you have a certification, things are going to just automatically happen. It doesn't work that way. Mm hm. It's a tool, it's a tool in your tool belt. Cj is going to come next, but CJ, have you seen the news lately? Did anybody hear what happened in Great Adventure in Georgia? Okay. So for those of you who don't know in Georgia, great adventure, great adventure is a business, right? And there was a mob scene with teenagers who did a huge fight where gunshots broke out and they had to close. This is great adventure in Atlanta, Georgia where gunshots broke out and they had to close the park for the day, right? And so we're talking about barriers. And I brought this up because now it's the bias of, okay, those people look at how they act, right? Look at what they do. And they're classifying an entire population based off of what one noisy group is doing. So, what are you seeing in the community, and what's this last barrier challenge that you want to share? Cj. I would say in just going off, I want to pick you back one point. What Ana made in terms of the lawmakers, right? A lot of people get this confused and I've seen it. I've worked at the federal level US Senate. I worked for the governor, I worked for the county exec. A lot of people go to the head honcho and most of the time the elected official is more so the mouthpiece of that team. They're not the ones that always pull the final decision or the final trigger. If you're trying to build a relationship, look for the policy directors, look for the legislative aides, look for the deputy chief of staff. Like those are the people you want to have. Just come to a site visit. I just want to show you my business. I just want to show you what we're dealing with. I just want to show you, hey, this might be a recommendation for legislation or area of interest that your principal elected official works on, so please take advantage of that. That's just my little tip bit in terms of building a relationship with these lawmakers. Going back to the workforce question, what we call the, I guess the external issues outside of the workplace are wraparound services. One thing that we're doing, there's an organization called Pathways to Apprenticeship, right? This is a apprenticeship program getting you into the Laborers Union, the Carpenters Union, so forth and so on. And one population that they try to target that is often forgot that I hate that it forgot is re entry individuals. Right? And when you're coming out there's a lot of barriers in place like from your driver's license, from having to be at your probation officers meeting across town, and the bus doesn't show. It's a lot of different things. Right? So what we try to do is support programs that are proven successful but can use additional enhancements. So what we do is the food stipends. It's food stipends. I think there's about three $400, a week. You get a car, you're in the program, it's just taken care of, right? Because when you go through apprenticeship program, that's like a full time job. You don't have time to do work outside of that, Don't have kids on top of that. How many of you all have kids? I got two. Hey, I almost didn't make it on time, man. I am not going to talk about that. But nevertheless, wraparound services need to be invested in more. We look at not just affordable housing crisis, but a childcare crisis. How many people are trying to put their kids in the childcare and there's like a wait list that goes on until September. And will they be safe when they get there? Exactly, right. So there's a lot of a lot of factors that go into, not just you getting to work, but there are a lot of barriers that prevent you from getting to work. And we need to invest more as a government. We need to invest more as corporations. We need to invest more in terms of the wraparound services. You look at the workforce and you look at the millennial generation, gen Z. And people want a sense of purpose. They don't just want a job anymore. You know? Like you can very easily get somebody to work with you and to work for you when they can see the vision. They're not just a worker. Listen, I'm sorry. No, no. That's the tidbit I wanted to give. Let's celebrate our panelists. Excellent discussion. Dominique? Is Dominique still here? Okay, I need some help. Hi Dr. Erica. How are you? Can you help me for a moment? Could you come up? All right. So Ayana, I want to borrow your microphone. So so what I'd like to do is give three people an opportunity to come right on up, right up here, up front. And so what you'll do is you'll have the opportunity to say hi to Dr. Erica over at PGW in Philadelphia Supply Diversity. And you'll be able to give your 32nd pitch, like who you are and what you do. And to ask a question that can be answered relatively quickly because we're almost out of time. But it was important to Victoria that we did take at least a few questions from the audience. And so, just to break the ice, I'm going to call up abundantly blessed home care, who's in the bad come up really quickly. Once someone from your organization, you'll be the first to ask the first question or to give feedback. And then I'm going to ask for two people to quickly come behind Abundantly home care, and we're getting ready to wrap this part up. Question, Judge. Okay. I'm sorry. Right here, Judge. Okay. All right. So, I'll let you ask a question first, and then we'll let abundantly bless come afterwards. Yes. Thank you, Dr. Eric Judge. Oh, you're welcome. You want to go first or No. Let the gentleman go first, please. You liberal clerk. Mm hmm. Good morning, everybody. My name is my Hampton. I'm the owner of Hampton Enterprises, which is comprised of Hampton Carpet cleaning and fresh coat painters. Thank you so much for let me ask this question. My question was for the panel, like you guys said, that like partnering up with the bigger companies. Like what structure is in place to make sure that that big company is trying to partner with the smaller company, Because that's another obstacle. That's a huge obstacle. You know, I see it every day. You know, like, and I'm from Detroit, so like all that diversity and like the point system and all that, I'm very, very familiar with it because it was in place there many, many years ago. So like certain portions of construction projects, just say the University of Delaware was completing this building like the contractor that got it had to give a certain percentage of it to the minority, you know, as you said, checking that box. So what system is in place to ensure that the bigger company is partnering with the smaller company? Thank you. So that's a vehicle, right? The MWB program and utilization program is a vehicle two, a pathway to. The only thing that guarantees that partnership is you and the value you bring to the deal. What is your value proposition? If there is no value proposition, I don't really need to work with you, okay? We want the president to answer, please. Yes. All right. So one of them we're working on at the University of Delaware and we're trying to get the right balance on the dollar amount. But requiring a diversity plan and the bid, we're not putting a quota, but we are developing to say what is your diversity plan? And that right away will target organizations and then we'll run our matrix and either eliminate or in. But that's one of our initiatives. We're trying to figure out the balance, you know, is that 50,000 or is that 50 million? I mean, where does it because we understand it's also a burden on the small business. If you've got to create these plans and you're maybe, you know, a ten person company and you want to do this so the larger corporations, in our view, will be required if they want to get the bid to have that diversity plan. And, you know, we're working some legal entanglement tester, then how do we ensure they meet that goal? Because they're liquidated damages or they just get a black box and we don't do business with them a second time because they didn't follow through on the first time. And so we're going to let abundantly bless go. And then after her, I see your hand. All right. Okay. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Ladna, saw Rag. I own my husband and I, George's in the back. We own a home care agency in Philadelphia. We have two locations, Center City and Brookhaven, Chester, PA. My question is, what if you let me see you. What if you have what you believe? You have everything in place, meaning you have the capability. You've gone beyond, you've reached out to your local chambers of commerce, you know, even facing challenges with capital. But you've reached out to, you know, who you believe that, those people that you need to reach out to, but you still haven't had the opportunity to gain the contracts or to even bid or, you know, you know about the RFPs because you did your own individual researches. You know about, you know, all the procurement opportunities, but you still haven't had the opportunity to be even looked at for a contract. How do you maneuver through that? What do you do? Because it's very frustrating when I say I've given jobs throughout Chester and throughout Philadelphia, we've employed over 100 people, but we still haven't gotten to that level where where I believe we should be at by now. Because 10 seconds again. I'm sorry. You know, we're over the million dollar threshold. We, you know, we were meeting, we're almost at $2,000,000 you know, making per year. But we aren't where we want to be. Again. We're looking to get contracts at a greater level. We've added different programs to our business, but we still haven't gotten to where we believe we should be. What am I doing wrong? Who, who aren't I connecting to? You know, machines, my connector, What do I do? I'm really frustrated. We're frustrated. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good question. I know a lot anybody here had that same question, right? What do you do? Okay. All right. So, can we get one person to answer that? We're gonna get that last question. I've got to turn it back over to Dominique and to Victoria. You're doing a great job, too, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I would say continue to be persistent, get involved, continue to build those relationships. I understand that frustration before I started the chamber. I also own a small business, so I understand. So I got involved, got involved with the Governor's Supply Diversity team. I'm sure you have the same resources out in Pennsylvania. But continue those forums. They have public comment where you can expose and discuss your real life, you know, trials and tribulations. So, continue to be persistent for us at the Delaware Black Chamber. A lot of our members are having the same issues. We created a u federal procurement series in partnership with the SBA where you can tap into federal funds and how to do that. How to get into the federal procurement database, What does that look like? Registering for Sams the entire process. So technical assistance is definitely necessary to navigating the procurement system because it's not easy. But continue to push, continue to show up. And don't get discouraged. What's unique about your business? I mean, that's really what you have to find out because there's a lot of food businesses, especially post covid home health care. So you have to find, and I think you talked about it earlier, What differentiates your business from the next business? Innovation. What's unique about your business? And then that's your value proposition that you start and then you build the narrative from there. And then if you can't go at it on your own, then find a partner who compliments what you're doing, not compete but compliments what you're doing. And make sure you understand what are they asking for. When you're looking at these RFPs, some of them are very convoluted. You got to understand what they're asking for. Make sure you go to the pre bid conference meeting. You'll learn so much and then you can actually reposition how you are going to compete for that opportunity. We've done it so many times that if I don't go to the pre bid meeting, I most likely won't submit because our last RFP was 128 pages. That's how big these RFPs are. And so what is your value proposition? You have to be able to answer that, Judge. Okay. Excellent judge. And really quick too. When you apply for an opportunity, they should also give you the opportunity to review it. Like why didn't you get that contract? So request those meetings, that's your job. They're not going to be proactive and say, hey, let's review your application, but you have to request to review it. It's required, it's actually required by law. You have the right to know why you were not selected for that opportunity, but they don't. You can do you can do a for your request. You hear for your request what that is right. You can actually submit a letter and request for a meeting that that entity has to then explain to you why you did not get it. That's all public record. You can actually get that information. Excellent Judge, this is good. I'm glad that you dropped that, Dr. Erica and then our final Dominique. Does that mean like right this moment or 1 minute? Oh, okay. All right. Okay. We're right there. Okay. Go ahead, Dr. Erica. So if I can jump in really quick, I just want to commend everyone on the panel. You are doing such an amazing job and all the jewels that you're dropping today is phenomenal. But I'm going to put on my procurement and my supplier diversity hat when you're out here meeting with supplier diversity professionals at these corporations, don't stop there. Ask them who is responsible or the head of their procurement team because that is also the individuals that you want to talk to as well. Not every supplier diversity professional sit in the supply chain department. They may be in the Finance department, they may be in the HR department. You need to know who the procurement people are, so you can understand the dollar thresholds as it relates to that company. So you can see where your company fits in and how you can get your foot in the door. So, I just wanted to drop that little tidbit there. That was worth it. Okay. The young lady at your table, Judge, right the question right here? Mm hmm. My favorite person. Dominique, can you come up for a moment please? Thank you, Dr. Erica, just to piggyback on what this individual what you had your question related to construction. Post construction. One of the things that chop has done as it relates to intentionality and purpose is really to with our prime construction partners. We encourage them, we strongly encourage them that they need to partner with local diverse construction firms so where there are opportunities. In fact, we have a tri joint venture which is building one of our biggest projects in Philadelphia, and two of those primes are MBE's. Again, working with intentionality. I can speak to you offline and give you some more information as to how that will work with what you're trying to do in your business. Thank you. And to expand on that, one thing at the county we're doing, especially with our Public Works contracts, is looking at some of those contracts that would typically just go to a GC prime and just say, hey, we're going to encourage you, try to incentivize you to get NBE's on board. But now what we're doing is taking those contracts apart, making those smaller contracts just strictly, hey, we can give this out to a NBU directly. So instead of relying on the GC or the prime to actually do it, we're taking it a step further and putting our own NBE contracts that are lower bid out bargain. Yeah. Okay. Pass them Mike so we can hear you, please. I was just saying that that's called debundleling and that should be a common practice of any supplier diversity program. All right. So we have more to give you. So can you give me some hands about how many minutes? About five. Is that what we're doing, Dominique? About five. Yes, I know, but I just wanted to keep the time. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you both. All right. So Dr. Erica is going to give you lightning speed tips. So I hope that your fingers are ready to type into your phone as well as to writing your pads. Okay. 'cause she already got the fire. She's already started. So I want to make sure that they see you and hear you clearly. So come take my spot. All right. Hello again everyone. I always tell my son, no matter what, be prepared. So here I am, A few tips as I mentioned before and to piggyback off of this wonderful panel supplier. Diversity is not just an entitlement or a check the box. It is a commitment. It is partnership. It is collaboration and communication. It's also being intentional and making connections. One of my favorite quotes that I like to live by, especially in the supplier diversity world, is that you meet people where they are to bring them where they need to be. That was by Dr. Michael Dyson. I actually heard him speak at a supplier diversity event with Jefferson Hospital over the pandemic, and that was one of the words that have stayed with me. I too, like Victoria and University of Delaware, I love people and I love connecting my people in all diverse women, veteran, disabled, LGBTQIA plus yes, all the alphabet soup. And connecting you to get a bigger piece of the pie than what you're already getting. Now you got to remember that Supplier diversity, again, is not just an entitlement. It's a relationship. It's a connection. It's for forming strategic partnerships in order for you to grow in your business and also grow with corporates who are looking to help provide you with the resources and tools that you need in order for you to grow your business. This panel today have dropped tremendous gems. We are under attack, period. We are under attack and the initiatives that we're trying to draw for all businesses, but more so for minority women, veteran disabled, and the LGBCQIA. And I'm going to keep saying that because it affects all of us, not just the black and brown businesses, but if it's something that we can do within our communities that can help grow black and brown businesses, this is it right here, is building these partnerships with these individuals so that you can help move the needle off the scale. In that way, you're guaranteed contracts and opportunity and money to feed your family. Supplier diversity is also all about generational wealth, building your staff. At PGW, we just launched our first supplier development program. We are a gas utility business and our program is focusing on this first cohort is focusing on developing construction contractors to work on gas main construction projects in PGW. One of the things that I wanted to do to be intentional with this program is allow the contractors or the cohort participants not only to learn about PGW and construction and gas construction and gas utility side, but for them to also take home resources and tools that can help them grow their business. It's all about diversifying your programs, diversifying your relationships, and creating that hub. You ever heard of the term, creating your own personal board of directors? Well, as a business owner, small business owners, you need to create that for yourselves. And that is basically creating a supplier diversity ecosystem that involves policymakers, corporate corporations, you yourself, the small business, and also supply chain and supplier diversity professionals. Those are the individuals or groups that are out here to help you thrive and survive in today's economy. So my good done. Okay, so let's give a huge round of applause And I'm so happy to step in for Michelle. And I really appreciate Michelle in Victoria in the University of Delaware for giving me the opportunity to kind of come up and speak a little bit. And even if it was to fill a little bit of time, walk away today and be intentional and be engaged. Walk up to people that you have never met before. Leave today fulfilled. And meeting individuals that you know can help grow your business. Creating relationships and network is not all about passing of the business card, it's actually making meaningful connections. So again, you meet people where they are to bring them where they need to be, and I hope you can succeed in that quest today. Thank you very much and thank you for the wonderful opinion. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Erica. All right. I believe we are wrapping up our first segment of the program. Okay. So this was met somebody. Just breathe in real deeply and then let that out. Who, what was a lot that we gave you today? All right, so am I introducing Eric and while I prepare to know? Okay, so Eric is coming next. The last piece of advice that we want to make sure you walk away with for this segment is N, someone say IN it is continuous, incredible noise. Continuous incredible noise. So that when your name shows up in these bidding rooms, that when it comes into the room, it's spoken well of Victoria. You wanted to say something? All right. Here we go. Eric Morisett, excuse me, undersecretary at US. Department of Commerce for Minority Business Development. Mr. Eric Morisett is Interim undersecretary excuse me, undersecretary at US. Department of Commerce for MB DA. Notable achievements encompass contributions to the US. Department of Commerce leadership, securing over $120,000,000,000 in federal funding, orchestrating critical legislative success, and crafting impactful congressional hearings. Thank you so much to our panelists. And let's welcome Eric Morsett. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I N I love it. I love it. I love it. And I think it's so important for the kind of work that you all are doing, the kind of information that we need across the federal government. As noted, my name's Eric Morris and I'm performing the duties of Undersecretary for the Minority business Development agency in the United States Department of Commerce. Thank you to the University of Delaware and Victoria Daniels, Chief Supplier Diversity Officer, for hosting today's event, which I understand has been outstanding. I want to also wish everyone a happy women's history month. And note that today is also MBDA's 55th birthday. So thank you for letting me celebrate this day with all of you. Let me tell you a little bit about the minority business development agency. Mbd's mission is to connect minority and underserved businesses with opportunities. Our job functionally is to create wealth in communities and serve. Mbd is the newest federal agency in the architecture of the executive branch. While MBD has existed for 55 years as a temporary agency, in 2021, President Biden signed into law the Minority Business Development Act. Thanks to this act, MD has greater resources, reach, and influence, and that's a huge credit to this administration. But also all those folks who are out there advocating on behalf of the agency and our work. Our influence starts with our network of 131 centers and programs that help businesses access capital contracts and opportunities to grow their business domestically and globally. In 2024, MD helped businesses secure over 5.4 billion dollar in capital and contracts, which is significant. Last year though, our historic new initiative was launched, the Capital Readiness Program. Mba launched our first ever program dedicated to serving Delaware businesses. Let me tell you briefly how the Capital Readiness Program works. The Biden Harris administration has invested $10,000,000,000 in the State. Small Business Credit Initiative, also known as SS BC I, this is essentially a capital fund for small businesses. Every state received a share of this. Delaware share is $61,000,000 for SSBCI to make the program work. President Biden called on MBA to make sure minority and under served entrepreneurs can get their share of this capital fund. With our marching orders. From the president in hand, we launched a Capital Reudinance Program, which the network of 43 incubators and accelerators designed to help minority and underserved entrepreneurs access capital. One of our 43 programs is here in Delaware, operated by Eastern Shore Entrepreneurship Center in partnership with four HBCU's. That's Delaware State University, Boy State University, Morgan State University, and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. This cohort will create a network of programs across Delaware and Maryland to help entrepreneurs secure capital from SSBCI alongside capital. Though MDs priorities expanding access to contracting opportunities for public and private sectors. First off, the case for supplier diversity is not an emotional case. It's an empirical case. The data shows that supplier diversity is good business. Multiple studies have shown that companies who practice supplier diversity can generate greater return in their investment and bring down operating costs. This is why we are focused on this and this is why the Federal Government and the Biden Administration has allowed us, these authorities, to reach into this space. But the reality is there are systemic challenges facing minority and underserved businesses in contracting. Historically, small and disadvantaged businesses receive less than 10% of federal contracting dollars. The good news is the Biden Harris administration is working right now to change that. In 2021, President Biden set the goal of increasing the share of federal contracts awarded to small disadvantaged businesses from 10% to 15% We're on track in fiscal year 2022. The federal government hit our goal of 11.5% The Department of Commerce did even better, awarding 26% of our federal contract to small and disadvantaged businesses. We're investing over $1,000,000,000,000 in building back our nation through the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Shifts in Science Act, and those are only things that we're thinking about in the context of the Department of Commerce. Mbda is working with federal agencies to help them invest this money in our communities and hit the equity goals set by the Briden Harris administration. In 2021, MBA launched the Federal Procurement Center. This center's sole mission is to help minority businesses insure federal contracting dollars. Since 2021, they have helped businesses secure over 10 billion in federal contracts. This is MBDA's impact in communities we serve, but there's only a small share of what we are able to do and what we're looking to do into the future. As noted in my introduction, I worked on getting over $120 billion in new funding lines within the Department of Commerce. And those funding lines present new and interesting ways for us to provide procurement opportunities for minority and underserved entrepreneurs. And the Minority Business Development Act, which was codified through the bipartisan infrastructure law, allows us to reach across the entire federal government and find new ways to pull up the procurement dollar spend within federal agencies. We're looking to find new and novel ways to realize this mission and we're looking for your partnership along that end. So thank you for all of your work in this space. Mbd is here to help you and to serve you, to learn more and connect with us about our programs and our centers. Go to Bda.gov my door is always open. And thank you, thank you for having this conversation. Thank you for your leadership in this space. Thank you for creating this space for all of these important issues to be discussed and for us to make real, meaningful change in realizing the full potential of our country. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And have a great rest of your conference. All right. So what I believe is about to happen now is we're preparing to bring the food out. I'm so I just need to get permission to give you a release break. Dominique is coming back, so go ahead and speak from where you are. Testes. There we go. Hey, let's get up for Michelle Snow. Thank you. Oh, Dominique, I've got I need 10 seconds. So all of my grow with snow people past and present. If you can please wave at me and make some noise. Grow with snow, alright? Alright. Thank you all for, but y'all wasn't loud enough. Come on, come on, don't embarrass me. Come on, make some noise where Yeah, grow with snow. Okay. I feel better now. Thank you very much. Thank you, Michelle. Let's give it up guys. Who so how did you enjoy the panel? We got Jerome Ayana, we had Mike, we had CJ. Good. Well, we're just getting started. And how about the US undersecretary Eric Morisset? Fabulous. We want to thank him from BDA for coming on virtually and making the time in the effort to be here. That's the number one thing, right? Making the time, the effort, the discipline, having the focus. That is where success is born. Who's hungry? Yes. Who else is hungry? I am too. I can tell everyone's wilting a little bit at the table. So, we're gonna break right now for lunch. Now, before everyone runs outside, there is plenty of food. We will not run out. Okay, Our next session will kick off at 01:30 We will start our classes. There are five options. So we encourage you to go into the program book, identify what class looks good for you. Please be on time. The classes will start promptly at the start time. So I always recommend get there 10 minutes before get a seat close to the front right. So for lunch again, it's outside these doors here. Enjoy the bathrooms are on this side. Have a great lunch. You guys police network, have fun. And we will see you back at our classes at 01:30 Thank you.
2024 Supplier Diversity Conference_Welcome_Plenary_Keynote
From Robert Diiorio March 11, 2024
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