Partners for Profit Business to Business Symposium 2010

The Partners for Profit Business to Business Symposium is a business networking activity designed to create new markets for suppliers and new sources for buyers.  It is a corporate and minority business exchange.

Designed to enable Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) the opportunity to identify current marketplace needs and appropriate personnel within the area's leading corporations and government agencies, the 2010 Partners for Profit Business to Business Symposium also focuses on providing buyers and procurement decision makers the opportunity to identify new competitive sources of services and supplies.

Through a series of focus-group discussions, MBEs are efficiently able to market their capabilities and capacities to major corporations and government agencies and buyers are able to inform MBEs of their procurement processes in a relaxed, personable setting - in one location - in one day.

Schedule of Events

Tuesday, 23 March 2010

7:00a.m. Registration
8:00a.m. Kick-off Breakfast and Award Ceremony
9:30a.m. Kids Kollege and Keynote Presentations
10:30a.m. Buyers Forum*
2:30p.m. Conclusion

*Buyers Forum Information

The purpose of this event is to substantially match current purchasing needs with qualified Minority Owned Companies. The following outline details the format for this event.

1. By 28 February 2010, each registered corporation and government buying organization is requested to submit a list of commodities/services that they plan to purchase within the next 6 to 12 months.
2. In response to the provided list of commodities/services, the Partners for Profit staff will compile a list of minority businesses that could meet the buying organization's needs.  After thoroughly reviewing each minority business and determining if the business is a match, minority businesses will be scheduled to participate in the 23 March Forum.
3. At the Forum, each buying organization/designated buyers will be assigned to an engagement table to meet with a pre-selected group of up to 5 different minority businesses for a 40-minute interval.
4. The buying representative will initiate the discussion by sharing his/her company's procurement focus and the "rules of engagement" for his/her respective procurement process for approximately 5-8 minutes.
5. After the remarks from the buying representative, each minority business owner/representative will have approximately 5-6 minutes to discuss his/her business' capabilities, capacities and value proposition.  NOTE:  Due to the targeted nature of this event, it is appropriate that Buyers as well as Supplier Diversity professional participate, if possible.
6. After 40 minutes, the minority business participants will rotate to the next scheduled engagement table.  Each corporate/government engagement table will have approximately 4, 40-minute sessions throughout the Forum.  This format should afford the opportunity for buying organizations to engage a host of potential suppliers and exchange information for future discussions.

*Minority Business Owners and Representatives will only be matched with buying groups that specify a need for their goods or services.

Keynote Speaker

Winslow Sargeant, Managing Director - Venture Investors

Winslow joined Venture Investors' Technology practice in 2006 as a Managing Director and has taken an active role in the Venture Igniter program. He was the program manager for the Small Business Innovations Research (SBIR) Program in Electronics, a new office in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Engineering Directorate from 2001 to 2005.  Previously, Winslow co-founded Aanetcom, a fabless semiconductor chip startup company with seed funding from Cisco systems which was acquired by PMC-Sierra. Prior to Aanetcom, he held senior engineering positions at Lucent, AT&T Bell Labs and IBM. Winslow currently serves on the Boards of Silatronix and Pattern Insight. Winslow currently serves as a Director of the University of Wisconsin Foundation and is the Vice Chairman of the UW-Madison Astronomy Board of Visitors. He is a member of the Boards of Directors of WiCell, WiSys and the Waisman Center. Winslow is a Trustee for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and also serves on Purdue University Discovery Center’s Research Board of Visitors. He is a member of the Advisory Board of NSF’s Industrial Innovation and Partnership Division (NSF/SBIR). Winslow received the inaugural 2002 Wisconsin Distinguished Young Alumni Award and was a 2003 Outstanding Engineering Alumni Awardee from Northeastern University. He received a B.S. from Northeastern University, an M.S. from Iowa State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, all in Electrical Engineering. Winslow is also a Kauffman Fellow – Class 11.

Lodging

A room block has been reserved at the Oneida Radisson Hotel for the participants of the 2010 Partners for Profit Business to Business Symposium.  Please call (920) 494-7300 to reserve your room, and mention promotional code "PARTNERS FOR PROFIT" to secure the group rate.  Please do this as soon as possible before the group rate is released.

Refund Policy:  Registration fees are nonrefundable seven (7) days prior to the start of the event.