ABQ Selected as Anchor City for Global Entrepreneurship Summit and for Nationwide Mayors Conference
Sept. 15, 2020
Albuquerque and the City’s initiatives to grow and support our small business community will take center stage during two prominent events this week: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation chose Albuquerque as a host city for a roundtable discussion among community leaders about its robust entrepreneurial ecosystem at the international ESHIP Summit, Sept 15-16. On the heels of that event, key leaders of the City’s Economic Development Department (EDD) will participate in the 2020 Mayors Conference on Entrepreneurship, also hosted by the Kauffman Foundation, Sept. 17-18.
The 2020 ESHIP Summit, which involves 47 states, 743 participants, and 20 countries, will explore systems approaches to building communities that are vibrant, prosperous, and resilient now and in the future. EDD Director Synthia Jaramillo will be among a handful of Albuquerque leaders guiding the hour-long roundtable live from Albuquerque. It will be conducted virtually in the style of a CNN expert panel so that participants from around the world can watch and listen.
“During the ESHIP Summit, we are featuring a round table of five ecosystem leaders from Albuquerque to tell the story of the development of the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem over the last 10 years,” said Andy Stoll, senior program officer of entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. “We looked across the country to see what cities we saw that have demonstrated a long-term, cross-sector commitment to entrepreneurship. We believe Albuquerque is an exemplary story of a community undertaking collaborative and inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem building efforts.”
The Mayors Conference, now in its ninth year, is an opportunity to collaborate with other mayors, city officials, and program experts about growing sustainable economies through entrepreneurship. Participating cities are asked to commit to a program, policy, or practice that will improve their local economy by supporting entrepreneurship and economic development in their community. EDD has committed to convening strategic, cross-sector partnerships to create plans for local long-term economic recovery, post-COVID-19. Mayor Keller and EDD will work with the National League of Cities (NLC), a Mayors Conference partner, to fulfill that initiative commitment as a part of a year-long technical assistance program called the City Innovation Ecosystem Program.
“While the pandemic has revealed many cracks in the system across the nation, here in Albuquerque it has also revealed our strengths. We have been in this fight together and we will recover together, as a united community building an economy that works for everyone. We have put millions of dollars directly in the hands of local businesses to help them through the pandemic,” said Mayor Keller. “The partnership program we are implementing with assistance from the National League of Cities is a strategic step toward making sure our city emerges from COVID with an economy that’s even more robust, inclusive, and representative of Albuquerque than when the pandemic started.”
In attending the conference and committing to a year-long plan, the City intends to marshal local assets, small businesses, and relevant institutions to discover how it can better support small business owners.
“The City of Albuquerque is honored to be recognized by Kauffman for our past and current efforts to build a vibrant small business community that can serve as a model for cities around the world,” said Synthia Jaramillo, Director of the City’s Economic Development Department who will attend the Mayors Conference with Mayor Keller. “But we are equally eager to come away from these events with new ideas for shared growth and prosperity across our city, all through the lens of equity and inclusion.”
EDD’s Sr. Economic Developer Monica Mitchell and Small Business Office Manager David Sayers will also attend the Mayors Conference, which will be convened virtually due to COVID-19.