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Nexus Louisiana’s 13th annual Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week kicks off Tuesday with a full day of sessions and a pitch competition.
BREW, slated to run through Thursday at Mid City Tower, will host more than a dozen sessions designed to help entrepreneurs start, maintain and grow their businesses. Sessions on Tuesday will cover handling unexpected business challenges, safeguarding a startup, crafting a brand’s digital identity and mastering automation.
The opening day of the conference will conclude with “Demo Day,” a pitch competition with graduates of Nexus Louisiana’s Ignition 2.0 accelerator program vying for a $10,000 investment prize. Demo Day will start at 5 p.m.
Calvin Mills, Nexus interim CEO, says this year’s event is unique with two separate keynote speakers this year, both speaking on Thursday morning. He also says ticket sales for BREW are higher than they were last year, but he could not share exact figures.
Dhiraj Mukherjee, co-founder of Shazam, will speak on “Stayin’ Alive” and explore his approach to entrepreneurship and the lessons he’s learned over the course of his career. Since Shazam was acquired by Apple for $400 million in 2018, Mukherjee has invested in over 250 startups in areas like AI and climate technology. This will be Mukherjee’s first time speaking in the U.S.
Felecia Hatcher, CEO of Black Ambition Prize, is expected to present “Thriving,” an exploration on how self-discovery and stepping into one’s “Zone of Genius” can drive innovation and pave the road to success. As the CEO of Black Ambition Prize, Hatcher has invested in over 100 entrepreneurs who have collectively raised more than $95 million in funding.
The week’s events conclude with the annual High Stakes Pitch Competition, which has higher stakes this year than in years’ past. This year’s High Stakes Pitch will serve as the qualifying event for the Startup World Cup grand finale, to be held in early October in San Francisco. Competition winners will also receive a $100,000 investment prize funded by Innovation Catalyst and Red Stick Angels and complimentary airfare to compete in Silicon Valley. See the three finalists for this year’s High Stakes Pitch.
