2024 Black Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program

And welcome to USPTO's 2024 Black Innovation Entrepreneurship Program. Thank you for our virtual audience in our in person audience here in St. Louis at T Rex. We're so happy that you decide to spend your time with us today. I'm NaThanya Ferguson, Manager of the Office of Innovation Outreach. My team and I support the mission of the USPTO by developing and delivering intentional outreach programming to support and empower under recognized and underserved communities of innovators. So we're excit

ed to be here today. A few housekeeping notes before we get started for our audience online. If for any reason you get disconnected, please simply use the link that brought you here and you will reconnect with us. We are not taking questions from our live audience today, but we definitely encourage you to send us your questions and comments to innovation@uspto.gov and a member from our team will respond to your inquiry. Last but not least, this program is being recorded, so if for any reason tha

t you miss a rich panel conversation, don't you worry you'll be able to access the information on USPTO's YouTube channel. So a couple notes, because it is Black History Month and I'm super excited at first. I got to give a happy belated birthday to Doctor Jim West, an inventor of the electric microphone. For example, I'm holding a microphone now, so his technology is responsible for 90% of the microphone technology that we're using today. And so his birthday was on February 10th. So a big happy

birthday to Doctor Jim West and we are going to get started to this program and we will have rich panel conversations with trusted organizations, national organizations such as the National Business League League to talk about the importance of supporting the next Gen. of entrepreneurs. And we'll also hear a very important topic, access to funding. We know that it's not easy being a black entrepreneur and we want to make sure that we connect you with resources that will assist you. So now I'm g

oing to hand the mic over to our gracious host, Lynette Watson, who is the Regional Director of Business Development Program for the Small Business Development Center. Welcome Lynette. Thank you, Nathaniel. Well, good afternoon, right. Good afternoon. Come on. Y'all, I need a little more energy. This is an energy day. Good afternoon. All right. Thank you all very much. First of all, I want to thank the USPTO for allowing us to partner with them on this event. And I want to thank each of you for

being here. On behalf of the T Rex, we are so glad to have you see our innovation, our innovation area. A lot of innovation goes on here. We are happy to have you today and we, I am so excited about the program and what is about to take place. Again, the SBDC, I'm going to give me a shameless plug real quick. We are located on the 8th floor for all of you that are local Missourians and in Saint Louis, please utilize our services because we that's all we do is help small business start, grow, sus

tain and expand. So I thank you guys for being here and I am so, so, so excited about this programming and I just want to throw a quick shout out to Portia Dean's who's not here who bought this all together for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I get to, I have the great job of introducing our next speaker who is joining us from he said all over the place. But I'm going to say from the DC area and that is Mr. Derrick Brent, who is the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Pr

operty and the Director of the USPTO of the US, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, USPTO as I like to call it. I mean what what a great opportunity for us to have Mr. Brent, Dr. Brent with us. Is that correct, Mr. Brent with us. So thank you. He just looks like a doctor to me. But thank you, Mr. Brent for joining us and I'm going to turn it over to him again. Thank you all for being here. Hopefully, hopefully I won't mess anything up up here. I'm going to use my iPad, but I don't wan

t to thank you for that, that welcome and getting the energy up here in the room. As she was getting the energy up, she reminded me a bit of my of my pastor when I was growing up and the pastor would get the energy up. So I feel like I'm like the, you know, the assistant pastor who would come along afterwards and just, you know, ask the question, has everyone been served? Have anyone been overlooked but at all? And true and truly, it is a pleasure to be here. I want to thank Lynette again for ho

sting us and for participating in the program. Big thank you to my friends NaThanya and Sean. That's always so happy. These folks just do it and they know I call on them so much. You know what is it to those who much is given, much is, you know, much is expected. It is. There's a bit of that because they deliver every time and they're wonderful teammates. They're colleagues. Sometimes they mess around and call me boss and I get upset and they know that I do because they're my colleagues and and

and teammates. I also want to thank the rest of the team that's here. Mr. Michael Cleveland. As always, I always appreciate seeing you, Sir. And then other members of our team that are here got a chance to walk over with my friend James from the Midwest Regional office. James, it's always good to see you. James's since day one, James has been a a a trusted advisor and and I'm happy to call him a friend. He is helped to keep me, to educate me, keep me focused. I wouldn't be here without him. So I

thank you and that's from the bottom of my heart. So it's a privilege to be here. And I want to say a big thank you to our friend and our partner here, Doctor Kenneth Harris, for being such a profoundly important leader for black businesses. It has been an honor to work with over the last year. Now, I'm going to have a gentle aside here. Doctor Harris and I, in our youth played basketball. We didn't play basketball together. I'm sure, actually, we probably didn't run into each other somewhere,

but we played basketball. And one of my favorite quotes in life is, you know, is Earth is a task garden, heaven is a playground. And you know, we used to, you know, we used to play on a playground, hours and hours. But now our playground has transitioned and folks like Doctor Harris, you know, I get to come along for the ride, but we have transitioned from the playground, from the blacktop to a new playground. And that is being out here trying to inspire a new generation of of business leaders,

of entrepreneurs, of innovators, of inventors. That's the work that we're doing. It's a playground because it's a pleasure. We're paying our blessings forward. So I'm happy to be on a different playground with you, happy to set the picks and if you tell me to, I'll pull the trigger, OK. In a few moments, the two of us, Doctor Harris and I, will sign a memorandum of understanding between the USPTO and the National Business League as we both commit to, as we both have committed to this agreement l

ast November. But we will do the we'll do the signing. The MOU represents a major commitment from both of our organizations to deliver resources, education and other vital tools to underserved communities and to empower a new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. Our connection with the NBL, that means that we are leading by example. We're reaching people where they are. We're going to them. And that's the hard work that Doctor Doctor Harris has done in his tenure at the as the head of thi

s historic organization. As Doctor Harris knows, patents and trademarks are critical to the success of new and established enterprises. And even after 124 years of assisting your members from the days of the founding by Booker T Washington, NBL now has a trademark. It's US trademark registration #7,281,512 and it was issued just a few weeks ago on January 22nd, 2024. So congratulations to NBL. NBL has chapters in all 50 States and we are proud that we are going to through through our organizatio

n as well as our regional offices, we are going to work with their chapters all across this country. Again, the goal of this historic, of this historic joining of forces is to spread the word, spread resources, spread intellectual property and and and to help to lift up a a new generation. But we're going to where people are. You can't just wait for people to sit back and wait for people to come to. You already started our partnership with NBL. Some of you may have noticed. And if you haven't, p

lease go look. NBL has posted on its website in the Black in Black History Month a list of very important black innovators. It is a wonderful, wonderful story and it's worth looking. It's worth looking at. It is impressive, is a tangible, it's a tangible result of our relationship. But quite honestly, it is just, it is just something where you, you look and you're proud. You get to see the history, those that came before us, because remember we're laying the groundwork for those that come after

us. This is. But this shows you where we came from. And I remember when I was a kid, my my grandmother got me a game. It was called African American History Mystery Game. And I'll tell you what they couldn't get me to shut up for about a month in school when I was, I was so proud, telling, hey, did you know about this? Did you know about that? Finally, my second grade teacher took me and she said, you know what, I was already ahead of the class in history like I was, you know, she said I'm going

to take you back here for about 3 weeks, let the rest of the class catch up with you. She said, and you're going to do a report on George Washington Carver. And it was, it was wonderful. I mean it was wonderful. I still got to participate in other classes, but that was how excited I was. And that's what this exactly, exactly. And that's what this project, this, this, this this exhibition that NBL has put out and that we're partnering with them on. That's what it has a chance to do is to inspire

. And I hope, you know, I hope that you that as you look at it, you will go out and talk about these folks that were our, our, our forebears. One of those folks is from the USPTO and we're very proud of this story and that is Henry Edwin Baker. He was a patent examiner and a lawyer who spent three decades compiling the first roster of African American patent holders throughout history. It's called Baker's List. Henry Baker died in 1928 and his list is still being used by historians today. It is

an incredible story. I believe it was caught by the Washington Post. It was published by the Washington Post as well as you can find it on our website. The entire story. But the the, you know, one of the key things to remember is that the is that the USPTO at a time when maybe it wasn't in vogue to put something like this out, not only did the USPTO give give give Mr. Baker a chance to do this, they also sent him to the world's the world's exhibition to actually present on it. So it was he, he h

ad contributed incredibly to the rich history of innovation in this country. We all know how important intellectual property is to our country. But I think you know intellectual property in and of itself. Everybody thinks patents, trademarks, copyrights, but it is the fundamental part of your business. But don't always just think of patents at first word, United States Patent and everybody kind of falls off after Patent. Trademark is important to young to entrepreneurs. It is the first touch tha

t you will have with your customers. It is the way that you define who you are in the marketplace. It is like you're walking into the door of the marketplace to say here's who I am. So it is important to remember trademarks and also important to remember copyrights for those of you in the software. We have a number of great resources and I'm actually, I'm just going to tell you a quick stat though. If you want to understand the importance of lifting up underserved and underrepresented innovators

, McKenzie did a study and roughly right now about there's about 2.2% of all entrepreneurs in the country those receiving funding is roughly about, it's roughly about 2.2% or they're, they're African American or black. That's a low number that's well below the representative number from the census data, right. And Mackenzie did a study and they said that if you could just get the representation level up to 12 or 13% where it is with the census, if you could just get up there. This is irrespectiv

e of the performance of the businesses, just having these businesses in the ecosystem trillion dollars to the to the GDP. So we need to keep creating businesses, we need to keep creating black businesses, we need to find more entrepreneurs and if you need to know why, I'll tell, I'll tell you another why. Because right now the rest of the world competitive is is competitively trying to run the race and catch us as a leader. So we need all hands on deck and we need all minds and all inventions, a

ll innovators on deck to to build the future. So that is why it is important cast a wide net, find innovation where it is and let's grow these business. We have a ton of resources but right now we have a ton of resources which I'm sure you will hear about, you'll hear about today. So I'm going to close my remarks and betray my lawyerly training, which would tell me to just keep speaking till somebody tells me to stop. But now it's time for us to sign the Mou. So thank you very much for your time

. Sorry, my. All right. Doctor. Doctor Harris. Yes, yes. Good morning. Good afternoon. It is, it is great to be here with you, my friend. You know Doctor Harris, I think we first time we met we did an entrepreneur's round table to talk about the important issues of of entrepreneurs and the person who kind of held the room you know captivated the room was Doctor Harris. I mean tell us what tell us what you're hearing out from the from the business community in terms of resources needed what you k

now what types of things. What are some of the successes though that we're that we're seeing and that's yeah. I think you you have one that you told me about that is really the the contracts. Well, one good afternoon to everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. And while we're celebrating Black History Month since we signed this historic MOU, I want to give an acknowledgement of our first Deputy Under Secretary for the US Department, US Patent and Trademark Office, Derrick Brent. So this is actually

Black History celebration itself. And so we're, we're, we're, we're very appreciative of your leadership at this time. The tremendous impact that you've made in just a short tenure. I think it's going to be replicable of young leaders coming up since that's today's conversation because you can actually see it to believe it. What we're hearing on the streets in terms of my organization, I actually have the luxury of being the 16th National President of the National Business League, which was fou

nded 124 years ago by the iconic and legendary Booker T Washington. And this organization comprises of regional offices in Detroit, Atlanta, Washington DC and Los Angeles, CA with our now newly relocated headquarters back home in Tuskegee, Alabama where we just opened up a new $2,000,000 facility to rebirth this organization into the future. And along with that, we just received our first national federalized trademark in the history of the organization because of the leadership of you, Derrick

and Kathy and the rest of your staff to be able to have this now historic legacy to bring back into the future. And I think they hired me one because I kind of sit in that in between group between the elders and also the youth, which I think is important. And and and why this is important is because we have 120,000 members nationwide. We have chapters in all 50 States and internationally we just opened up our international office in Cape Town, South Africa in partnership with another Mou signing

with the Department of Commerce. So we are re establishing ourselves as the original. And entity as the 1st and oldest trade association in in on the globe in particular. And so this allows for us to have boots on the ground. And what I've challenged as we are relaunching all of our chapters into a new digital platform, Under Secretary is now we're having our chapters led by the next generation of entrepreneurs. And so anyone that is, is 40 and under. I don't like the age folk because we are a

nonprofit, we don't discriminate, we don't categorize by age. But we put an emphasis on that next generation to not just wait in line, but to grab the leadership mantle and to get in and and get involved and engage in lead in what I've asked the elders to do. Those who are of of wisdom, those who are of a knowledge point to advise the next generation, point out those pitfalls and in in those different areas that you all have been through through experience so that we can help this or this next g

eneration be successful. Because there is no success without succession. And that's one thing that we have to get really good at in the black community is to prepare the next generation not to wait in line, but to step out front and lead. Absolutely. When you hear, you know, when you hear those numbers of 120,000 folks, I mean for us at the USPTO, we're like, we're like this is great and these are folks that are all across the spectrum in terms of in terms of where they are in their in their jou

rney and their in their entrepreneurial journey. And we the thing that we want to do is to provide resources. We want to provide education support. One of the one of the interesting things and I've talked about this I just came from another conference and and it's something that I think is one of the most beneficial things for all of you entrepreneurs in the in in the audience is, is keep in mind that you may engage with one part of the federal government. You may engage with you know the USPTO.

You may engage with the with with the MB DA part of the Minority Business Development Association agency from the for it within the Department of Commerce. But what is working now and what I think is, is starting to make it better for for you all in terms of engaging with us is that we're providing pathways, we're starting to engage with each other. The government is now long no longer working in silos. I know at the Department of Commerce you know we call it 1 commerce. We start to, we're star

ting, we're engaging across so that we're each talking to each other so that when you talk to one of us, we can say, hey, oh by the way you know, great that you're pursuing intellectual property. Have you thought about small business, have you thought about economic development, the agency MBDA? And by the way have you looked at at our partners like NBL? We are. We're able to. When you lock into one right now, you're able to engage and get further visibility into into other areas. And I think th

at's what makes it an exciting time because if we can continue to do that, if we can continue to coordinate our resources, it's going to be a force multiplier for you all. It really will. And you'll start to find that all of a sudden you're not just picking and choosing from one agency, you're not just hitting up. You know maybe you're hitting up a grant from one place, but you're able to find resources that can actually help you grow, especially in those initial stages. I mean the way we were a

ble to connect with NBL because we learned of their, of their work with other parts, other parts of commerce. So that's one of the exciting things that I, that I look forward to. Yeah, Under Secretary I, I think, you know, this is the day and age of collaboration, collectivism, working together. The mindset of of individual success is no longer relevant in the black community, not just here domestically but also abroad. And and you know, with the significant amount of growth back to our what I b

elieve is the source, because our story didn't start with slavery. In this connection with the USPTO office is critical. Because when we trace our roots back to ancient Africa, to ancient Kemet, which today is called Egypt, which was named by the Greeks after they conquered Kemet. You will find, although there was an official Patent Office, all types of trademarks and patents that, you know, our ancient ancestors are contributed to the civilizing of humanity in the world in terms of agriculture,

economies and entrepreneurship. And when I, you know, as a black historian and black economist, you know, I can relate that under Deputy Under Secretary to the fact that we see black business growing three times the national rate to over 3.6 million black-owned firms. We know the excitement amongst young people who if I was in my classroom today and I asked them, what do you want to do for the rest of your life? Do you want to work for someone or do you want to own your own business? 95% of the

students are going to say I want to own my own rather than being owned by someone else. And even if they work for someone, they have that entrepreneurship mindset and everything that we do as to where we were taught to go seek a job. What I'm teaching and hearing the younger generation is that they want to create jobs and and that is the foundational emphasis that Booker T Washington taught when he founded the National ***** Business League 124 years ago with self-sufficiency, self innovation,

manifesting your entrepreneurial ideas, bringing it into reality. And I am not surprised that out of the 3.6 million black-owned businesses, black women are the fastest growing segment of entrepreneurs in the country, regardless of race, creed, color, sexual orientation or gender. So give black women a round of applause. Because Deputy Under Secretary, you know, women are more than just glorified secretaries. If we trace their roots back to ancient African tradition, Black tradition, you'll find

that even when foreigners came into Africa, the first business people that they met were black women. And so we're going back to the source. And it's so critical that this innovativeness that's in place, it is now officially connected to the organization that can bring them resources and connectivity in a collaborative way. And I think this partnership is going to achieve some great results. I know it will. I know it will. Looking at the time do we need, is it time to move on to the panel? OK,

we're going to take a second. We're going to move on to the panel discussion. Thank you, Deputy Director Fred and Doctor Ken Harris. So we just heard a lot of insightful remarks from these two amazing gentlemen. So now we're going to get ready for the next panel where we're going to talk about the importance of building collaborations with national organizations such as NBL to empower the next Gen. of innovators. So as we are transitioning, I want to invite Christy Jackson to the stage Director

of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Haristo State University and also Ariel CEO, Young Biz Kids. So come on up, Ariel. And last midnight definitely leaves Jay Montez Cameron, another Harris Stowe State University students. So please come up to the state. All right. Well, this, this is impressive right here. And and I'm smiling because I know I'm going to walk out of here inspired and and full of energy from what you're bringing. So thank you very much. We're going to start with

introductions that you you met Doctor Harris and I Ariel Bivens Briggs. So I'm the So I Ariel Biggs and I'm the founder of Young Biz Kids and YBK Day, which is an organization that empowers youth age 8 to 21 to start a business, learn financial literacy and also build generational wealth through the process. Jay Montez Yes, I'm a sophomore at Harristown State University majoring in business administration with a focus on entrepreneurship. I'm developing my own business called OV Customs. It is c

ustom shoes that can be made with fabric and things of that nature. We could talk more about that later if you would like. And I'm also a thriving ambassador if you've heard of thriving the Fortune 500 company, they are partnering with hair stove and we're throwing an event in our Emerson gym on 314 days. So I've been helping playing with that. Now I'm going to I'm going to come back to you for for a a quick question because what I'm intrigued by is I've is one of the things that I'm not the onl

y one that believes this. James and I we went out to we went out to Minnesota we had a we we talked to a bunch of young students young young inventors you have to entrepreneurship has to be brought to folks as an opportunity earlier and earlier and to see someone who is who's in school and is is becoming an entrepreneur on this. I I mean that is that's where we need to be and you're going to inspire people younger than you so that we can start growing, we can start growing even younger and bette

r. But I'm going to come back to you because I want to ask you, how did you get it? How did you get into it? So, Christy, so good afternoon, everyone and thank you so much for the opportunity to participate in this panel and talk about our work at the center of innovation and entrepreneurship at the only HBCU in Saint Louis, which is Harristown State University. But in listening to all of the resources, you know, I will say that I am a product of all of the benefit of all of these resources. My

husband and I have been entrepreneurs for 20 years in this ecosystem and we developed through our entrepreneurial journey asking questions, identifying gaps, not having access to resources. And as we began asking questions, where are the resources? How do we get connected to this? We got invited to more and more tables, and so we acquired more partnerships and relationships and opportunities. And as we learned information, we happily shared those with those in our community and in our network, w

hich led me to this opportunity to serve as the Executive Director of the Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. And here is so. And there we offer various entrepreneurial programs, a meeting our community of scholars, community members, staff members where they are. We offer business accelerator programs, we offer access to capital. We offer programs for nonprofits as well. That is still a business. And so it has just been a beautiful, we are a startup as well. We started in, you know, 2020

and as we are supporting businesses that are developing, we are growing and we're learning right alongside them. And so it's been a beautiful journey, but proud to say that today we have graduated 150 entrepreneurs from our business accelerators and that is that. Thank you so much. That includes those that are participating in our ten week programs. We have our youth ambassador programs, but we also have a virtual community and we have 600 entrepreneurs from across the nation that are tapping i

nto our resources and setting up time to meet with our business mentors. So we are truly about building a strong community. Listen that's you know like 20 years. That is Doctor Harris you remember from our round table when you talk to when you talk to entrepreneurs it's about perseverance. And I yeah, I see heads nodding up here it's about perseverance and to be you know but the other thing that you that that you discussed and I still remember this distinctly the the one young woman from Syracus

e who was working with the shoes and she was actually in Manhattan but but but is that you ask questions. Like you just kept asking questions as you went along the journey and that is part of perseverance is making sure you're asking questions get that knowledge figure out a way because no one's going no one's going to figure this out on their own or alone. You're not siloed. So thanks to you. Thanks to you. Now Ariel, you were you were a student in the in the Business accelerator program and Ja

y Montez, this is for both of you, because I'd love we'd love to hear about your journey to entrepreneurship. How did you what did you see that inspired you? How did you come to to to entrepreneurship. So I came to entrepreneurship through my 7 year old son. He wanted to start a vending machine business. I told him no because he was 7. But then after about 3 months he did his business plan. He came back with us, told us where he was getting the funding from and he started the business. So if you

Google Now youngest vending machine owner in the United States. That's my son and he look up Floyd, that is yeah. But but training him in entrepreneurship, other families from around the United States started to reach out and asked me how are you doing this with him. And then I started with six kids, then it was 25 kids, then it was 150 kids. Now currently we serve 300 kids across 8 states. And can you tell us a little how the Business Accelerator program helped you? Yes. So it helped me to see

that it was not just my household that I really needed to do a business model to look at everything that we can offer, everything we had accomplished, and what we can put in the blueprint to show to other kids and their families on how to build generational wealth and pass down the knowledge at the same time. So that's what it helped me to put it all in order and say that you're not just a mom, you are a business owner that's going to do something to impact the rest of the world. Jay Montez, ho

w about yourself and what inspired you to brought you to entrepreneurship? Honestly, when I was growing up, a lot of my family always told me that I had a good business mind. I handle money well and things of that nature. When I've turned 16 and I got my first job, I was like not going to do this for the next 40 years, honestly. So it kind of, it kind of started there and I was just picking my brain, trying to be creative and just do things. And when I got to college, I had too much time on my h

ands and not enough money in my pockets. So I was just trying the next thing and one day just shoe customize. It came up, I believe on my Instagram page and I just tried it out. It came out pretty well for my first time. I ended up liking it and I stuck with it and hopefully it takes me 4. Doctor, Doctor Harris, you know we just, we just signed, you know we just signed a historic MOU and we talked, we talked a little bit about collaborations and how important they are. Can you share with us some

of the other some of the other collaborations that NBL has engaged with that have been very productive and that are you feel are moving the ball forward. Yeah as as I mentioned deputy Under Secretary is that this generation is going to require collectivism it's going to require us working together. I always say teams when the individual mindset is is a wrap and and things that we have been intentional about with Booker T Washington's legacy. In 2022 we launched the first ever National Alliance

for Black Business and we partnered with the National Black Chamber of Commerce which was founded in 1993 as the 1st and oldest national black chamber in the country. We also partnered with the World Conference of Mayors, which are all of the black mayors not just here in the United States, but across the entire globe, so that we had culture, race, politics and economics as a center to now our alliance has grown to over 50 national organizations that we will be unveiling soon. So we we are enthu

siastically about removing the ego so that we can do the work of our ancestors. Because we can't take any of this with us. We have to lay the foundation and the bricks and like our ancestors did for us to be able to have this podium and to have the first deputy Under Secretary of the USPTO office in place. We have to do the things now so that our hundred year plan manifest itself into an economic freedom movement for black people all across the globe. And that's going to be through collaboration

and another successful collaboration. In short, we just announced for the first time in history we partnered during the pandemic with the economic shutdowns with the George Floyd racial unrest that sparked a equity push for black businesses across the country. And we partnered with Stellantis, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Toyota and several other Fortune 500, Fortune 50, Fortune Five companies and we came together to form the first ever national black supplier development program, keywor

d development. As we saw that one, we were losing national black suppliers. We didn't have black suppliers of scale competing for procurement and contracting opportunities. And we're happy to announce that we started a cohort three years ago. We just finished our third one and we achieved for the first time in history $100 million in contracts to black business owners through that type of collaboration. So as as you would allude to, we're more than talk, we're more than press conferences and pla

titudes with no intentional measurement. And today, it's about not talking about what you're going to do, but talking about what you have done already. So we are shifting to an entirely new mindset and it's through those collaborations that we are forging this major successful economic movement, not just here in America, but throughout the globe, doing work, doing the work, doing the work, going the work and getting the receipts. Exactly, exactly. Christy, why don't you tell us a little bit more

about the about the HSSU business accelerator program. I mean Ariel gave you a great a great advertisement right there. But I am tell but I want to hear more about this and and and I wanted to hear about it jealously because I want to be able to talk about it to other people because of its success. Well, we would love for you to do that. It is an extension of the Anheuser Busch School of Business. And you know, what we have discovered is that there are so many ecosystem resources that are avail

able. We are just a small chunk of the ecosystem that is providing the support through Harristown State University. But we're doing it differently because we can also add the layer of education. There are lots of resources that are available and we can say go to the SBA and fill out the form and we can say, you know, go to legal services and you know, request the services that you need. But there are times that people need you to kind of hold their hand, help to vet some of these resources, for

them to walk alongside them. And that is what we do differently. We are listening to the needs in which our entrepreneurs have. We've learned that cohort models are the best because they can continue to grow and thrive in community. We're listening to where the gaps are. Ariel didn't mention that she actually has a trademark, but that was a result of a workshop that we offered. I also have one too. I'm excited, but my trademark came from Legal Services of Missouri. You know, when I was an entrep

reneur and so we offered workshops around trademarks. We had an attorney come in and talk to us about it. And not only do we have say come in and talk to us about the resources we require, the follow up where you get online with our business owners and walk them through the application. And so that's how she got her trademark. And so you know it. It is a beautiful thing. You know, black folks are already innovative. You know, we are already scrappy. We already get it done. And I love what you sa

id about black women in business because it is absolutely true. But sometimes you need the right words. Sometimes you don't realize. You know, I have always been an innovator, an idea person, a maker, but I didn't know that I was a designer. I didn't know that I was a product developer until I got that language. And so we offer those experiences to our business owners, but not only do we do that locally, we also take entrepreneurs globally. We have a global ventures program and we take our schol

ars and our entrepreneurs. We've been to Paris, we've been to Ghana. We just went to London. And we take them to learn about various cultures for exposure, but also connect them directly with black business owners across the globe to help them expand their business. And as we're doing that, they're building those relationships, but they're also learning about trade at an early stage. And so you can kind of build with those things in mind. So we're doing things a little differently, meeting our b

usiness owners where they are creating that safe space and community. Our business accelerator launches March 18th. We come and see me after this panel to access our startup tree information where you can apply for any of our programs. And I forgot to mention, they are free. There's there's no barriers. Our programs are free and we also have an 18 credit hour entrepreneurship certificate. And so once you finish the accelerator programs, many go on to get their certificate in entrepreneurship and

we hope they continue on to get a business degree. I jokingly tell the story buddy of mine Want to bet with me and basketball or football practice something and we went to eat afterwards so I had to buy him a burger and I looked over at him and said how'd that burger taste? He said three can't taste no better. Listen one I really want to draw 1.1 point out of this and then I'll make it. I want to make a time check make sure we're OK. But one one point that you hit on that is so important is the

force multiplication of bringing of the collaborations. You know, we've all been talking, you've heard that keep talking, you know, we keep hitting on that. Collaborations are force multipliers. They really get things done and look at, you know, look at how it's it's helping your program. You're not just learning, just learning, you know, you're not just learning how how to build a business, You're learning a whole wide range how to fund your business. You learn a little, you learn about intell

ectual property, you learn about these things. We have one of our pro bono law clinics, one of our free legal service law clinics. It's in a law school where they took it and they now house it inside of their school of entrepreneurship. So now when you walk in the door and say, hey, I have an idea I might want to, I want to try to get a patent on this. They they say, OK, but we're going to tell we're going to teach you to build a business. Part of it is they give you a stipend to go ahead and do

markets, market market surveys, so that you can figure out your customer base so that your invention is getting to the market that it needs. And when you walk out the door with a patent, you're also walking out of the door with a business. So it's programs like this where you're putting together multiple resources that are a powerful, powerful tool for for you as intra entrepreneurs. I'm so glad you mentioned that. And I just wanted to also add that piece of investing in our businesses. Often t

imes our graduates really become our vendors as well. And so we have them as priority. And so Ariel does a a market for her youth entrepreneurs, her young biz kids market and she holds that at Harris Stowe. And so we are now partners in that endeavor. And so it is actually a full circle investment. They're learning, but we're also turning around and investing in them as vendors. It's a proud thing to give back, isn't it, Harry? Yes it is. How are we doing today? OK. We just got to give this a st

eam panel of just quite leave the mics with people, I mean on the chair please Afternoon. So before we move on to our next panel, we learned a lot from that conversation, a lot of insight, the importance of making sure that people not only obtain IP protection but also we're supportive throughout the innovation and entrepreneur ecosystems. A lot of times as Christy mentioned, we are innovators by nature. We identify problems in our community and we come up with solutions to such problems. So it'

s very important to realize that. And I wanted to share a slide and maybe it's not showing, but we have a tool at the USPTO, it's called the IP identifier tool because so many times you have intellectual property and you don't even realize what type of intellectual property that you have. So through this tool take you about 5 minutes. It's such a valuable investment. It's going to ask you a few questions and then it's going to explain to you what type of intellectual property that you have. Not

only that is going to connect you to valuable free resources at the USPTO that can help you throughout your journey to obtain the intellectual property that is right for you. So I know we're on time. I think this is just a reminder we got to have more time for these insightful programs in the future. But now it's my pleasure to introduce Acting Regional Director James Wilson of our Elijah J McCoy Regional Office to the stage. And we're going to have an insightful panel discussion about inspirati

on to innovation. Thank you, Jane. Good afternoon, Good afternoon, Good afternoon, everybody. It's good to see everybody. Yeah. When I get a mic, I'm that guy. I'm that guy with a mic. Yes, indeed. We I want this to be engaging. I wanted to be insightful and I want everybody to relax, take a couple of deep breaths, and I'm going to call my panel members up, some of who I have, some of whom I have met before and I have worked with before. It's it's it's a trip. Let me let me share a little bit. I

was here a year ago in this very same room and engaging with individuals who were concerned with and interested in small business interests, intellectual property and and entrepreneurship and innovation. And to have an opportunity to come back and to be in this fabulous city with this good BBQ is a good thing. It's a really good thing. Bear with me for a quick second while I pull up the individuals in my panel. Terrance Wheeler, come on up. Be strong. Come on up. That's Byron Strong and Mr. Mar

vin. Eugene Thomas, it would be my pleasure if you would come on up. So to start out, I said a little bit about myself. I'd like for each one of you to give me that elevator pitch description of who you are and what your relationship is to intellectual property. What is it that you do? Why are you here? Why are you on this panel? Why do you think that we asked you to be on this panel? And I'm not going to call on you individually. Y'all grown-ups. I'm going to let you go and I'm going to let you

. I'm going to let you decide who's going to go first. Well, I go first. I guess I'll go first. My name is Byron Strong. I am a Air Force veteran and thank you for your service. Thank you, thank you. And after coming back from serving sort of started in, in the insurance business. And I'm working as an investment advisor and and have a practice but start to have different where I've seen other needs where people normally I'm helping people with their portfolios and people that have funds have mo

ney, but have started see where there was a need for people that didn't have anything. And sometimes you're driving by people that don't have anything. And we've developed or developing a platform that advertises for restaurants and lets you share on that platform with people that are unhoused. OK. All right. Well, thank you for that, Terrence. Good morning everybody. My name is Terence Wheeler, I'm from Columbia, MD. And as far as how I got started, I have a a real, real crazy story. I was sell

ing juice and snack Baggies in college and it was called, it's called Liddy Juice. To come kind of kind of really stumbled on to entrepreneurship was something I was doing as a hobby but took the really the the the Hampton Roads at 757 area by storm at the time I went to Hampton University. I called it Liddy Juice blew up in that area. And then I decided to professionalize that concept. One person had walked in one day while I was selling this juice and asked me, man, you're going to, you're goi

ng to start lick coming or something one day and kind of just rewired my whole trajectory of my brain and I decided to professionalize this concept. And I created Lumiere talking about five years of development and the whole, the whole point of creating the brand was I wanted to give vodka specific aroma and taste and character to it. And also without compromising health conscious benefits of, you know, it being low in calories and something that does not make you feel terrible the next, the nex

t morning. And I was able to accomplish that. We did very well, extremely well. And our first year on market, we did 150 locations and about 6-6 figures and sales for our first year. So we did really well. And I'm here because I have intellectual property too. I own 2 trademarks. Fantastic, fantastic, Mr. Thomas. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Marvin Thomas. I'm a service connected to say with veteran in front of Marine Corps. I own BFT products. I am a inventor. I invent different produc

ts. What I do, I create new and improve existing products. Right now I'm proud of one of my products, which is a hands free leveler which has caught the attention of a lot of different companies. I started inventing products since I was 8 years old. I was 8 years old, but I was also a baseball fanatic. And you know, I thought I was going to swear baseball, but I still had that academic skills in my head where I can come back and fall back on that even after the injuries that I have experienced t

hrough my lifetime. And this is what I enjoy doing, inventing things. Thank you so much. Thank you. So ladies and gentlemen, we have patents and we have trademarks represented here on this panel. And I'd like for you gentlemen to share with us how you moved in the space to arrive at making the decision. I'm not sure whether or not you use the tool that Natanya just referenced to find out what type of IP. And sometimes you find out when you use that tool that they're multiple types of IP that you

could use to protect your creations of your mind or your innovations. And so gentlemen share with us how you arrived at or who who spoke to you or talked to you or how did you get to the patenting place and the trademark place. We'll start with you Byron. Yeah well today's special is the name of our company and we were really playing off of the the term that when you go to a restaurant you're trying to find out what's your today's special. And but we wanted it to be a sharing platform and so we

utilized the the word 2 and as days and it was something for me and something that I could share. But we wanted to be able to sort of own that and coin that phrase. And so we we actually was invited to a event that was at Harris Stone where we got an opportunity to talk to an attorney that did trademarks and patents. And and there is where we kind of got on that road and found out that there was a whole lot more than what we thought and we would actually we we needed that professional help to k

ind of get that part started. We also had the slogan to find deals, share meals, which we found out, well, that she was asking the question, well, do you want close together? You wanted a part. We kind of had to figure out how to make all that work together. But actually the help from that that attorney was was a big, a big, a big, a big a big deal. Thank you so much for that answer, Tom. Mr. Thomas. Yes. I started out first was start out with the poor man patent. And the poor man patent is when

you develop something and you mail it to yourself and you do not open up that envelope that's called the poor man patent. But as time went on, I got connected with a patent attorney and which was really good and being done with some disabled veterans. So it cost me half price to get my patents you know filed. And another thing I did was I did patent search first. If you going to file a patent, first thing you do do a patent search first on your own and then if you did it then you have your lawy

er to do a patent search also. Then you collaborate with each other. And ever since I've been connected with this guy I've been patting things every year just about I got like about 8 patents right now. Congratulations and I just received one that I'm really proud of and that's the hands free leveling and that's catching the eye all the construction world. So there are people in this audience right now with whom I have engaged in other cities, who are glad to be in the room to hear how you are g

oing about and what you've done on your IP journey. I'm from Portsmouth. I don't tell a whole lot of people that this man went to Hampton University. Are you from, are you from that area? No, I'm from Columbia, MD. You're from Columbia, MD. I went to Howard. OK. The world is small. The world is very small. So your your trademark, you said somebody came in one day and said something to you and it sparked some interest and it was just through conversation. How did you decide that you needed to pro

tect your brand, exactly what you have that is yours. So I like to put everything in the form of a story because I think it's very important to really tell exactly how things came about And then our stories are very valuable. I always thought my idea your well your ideas in general are very valuable and it's it's it's important that you protect them because that's that's your creative property and you have to be able to protect it. And I remember the first time I got the idea to even go to an in

tellectual property attorney. I scheduled a meeting. I went in his office and I sat down and I was like, man, man, what do you, you know, what do you think about this at this time? It was just a mock up. I was showing him, you know, what the bottle design was going to look like. I hadn't launched the product yet. Tell him about the concept and I sat down with him and I told him everything and he just got real quiet and he's typing, typing on his computer. He's like he said what's the point of th

is? It doesn't have any value. He said you're not on the market. No one knows what this is and you'll probably change it and do whatever in the next few years with anyway. And I just I all all the air had left my body rattled your cave and all the yeah, all the air had left my body and I didn't. But I'm the type of person where that that really charged me up. I've it's just a certain piece to me. It really charged me up and I ended up doing it myself. You fought. You fought for your trademark on

your own. I did it myself. I did it myself. So let me let me let me share with everyone that we recommend that you get an attorney to assist you. But if you are serious, and if you dig your heels in and you learn and you understand the concepts of what it takes in order to do it yourself, it is possible for you to get a patent, filing it yourself to receive a trademark. Following it yourself. Congratulations, young man. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Sometimes others don't see the value

in what we value and it requires that we step out and take care of what it is that we need to in order for us to achieve our goals. What advice would you give a new entrepreneur or a new innovator who is looking to break into the industry? What would you, what would you say to someone who is looking to be an innovator and to have intellectual property and to be a business person such as yourself? What does it take? What is it going to take? What it takes is if you believe in yourself, do it on

your own, no matter what. Nobody say. They say no, you say, yeah, that's what I always done. Because believe me, that's the journey I went through. I had people say, oh, that is not going to work. Oh, that ain't going to work. And next thing you know, I got 8 patents. Now I ain't think about what they talking about. You know, believe in yourself, get all the help you can get. But believe in yourself, you hear all you say less and be your own judge. Were there any resources that you use? You say

you did it on your own, but I know that you had to read, you had to do some research. Were there any any tools or any things that you would share with our audience? It all depends what you are developing. First of all. Now I like I said, I'm an inventor, so I have to have things produced or or developed. It cost me some money. I'm I'm broke now I'm just telling like it is but I know I have valuable I PS. I know I have very valuable. I PS it just takes the right person to come on with you and hel

p you get along And and I never stopped I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing I'm motivated was about to tell me no that's you you can tell me no. 100 times I say yeah and I'm going to keep going. Even family will tell you no. Just and that is real talk depend on yourself much as you can and try to get much help as you can. Don't turn it away. If you get some help. Don't turn it away. Don't turn it away regardless whatever they tell you. You know. But I'm sorry. Yeah go right ahead. I thin

k it sort of becomes like if anybody has children, it almost becomes like your child. It it becomes a part of you, your business, your brand, how it's viewed by others, all that. It becomes a part of you. And it's sort of like you're raising this baby and you know you you're very protective about, you know who says whatever about it. And you want it to be where, you know, you know where your parents if anybody grew up in, you know in a black in a black home. You know your parents were always lik

e, you know when you going out you representing us you know what I mean And you know so you're not going to go out and embarrass me you know. So it's it was something that you putting out there and you don't you want to be something that's representing you and sort of sort of mine came from my own experience. I'm a I'm a musician as well And so the name actually came from my son who called me and said, dad can you order us some pizza. I was on my way to another meeting and I was like pizza from

where, man we I got to get to this meeting. I'm. I'm in a hurry. He says, I don't know, Dad Pizza Pizza, who's got specials. And so I pulled over to the side of the road. I'm thumbing through menu after menu, like why aren't all the specials in one place? And that's where the name Two Days Special came from. But but Fast forward I was, I'm a musician and I was, I was playing at this service and I left the service. It was Sunday, Sunday morning. I had to be at another service that I was in a hurr

y to get to. And I got in the car and I hear this voice that says you do this every Sunday, you're just going to get to that service. Are you going to tune up the Oregon? Everybody's going to get excited. If anybody familiar with the black church experience, you're going to get excited. Everybody's going to get excited about what they should do and then get in their nice cars and then leave and then come back again next Sunday and get excited about what they should do. How much is that moving th

e needle. And if anybody, like I was saying and familiar with the the black church experience, everybody gets happy, everybody gets excited, everybody. You might cry. I mean, you get happy enough, you might even fall out. But but a lot of times you don't get a chance to translate that into whatever you have learned or whatever you've heard. And so that particular Sunday, I actually didn't go to that service. I detoured. I went to the dollar store and I bought up these 3 bags of variety chips. Th

en I went down off of Tucker, pulled into the McDonald's. I bought 30 to 40 cheeseburgers. Then I was pulling in behind buildings where people were literally in in dumpsters looking for food. It was totally improv. I had never done it before, but I I got out of my car. I I said, you know, I have cheeseburgers. I have chips and people were coming up to me and saying God bless you Sir, thank you so much. Then from, you know, from I was from building to building doing that and and then I realized t

hat I had missed this service. I've been out there for so long and I was in tears. But then I heard the same voice say, no, Byron, actually this time you were actually in service. I did the same thing the following Sunday, three actually that second that Sunday after that COVID hit and I got a call that morning that there was no service. I continued to do that and that was March of 2020. We still do that on Sundays. And so this has developed out of that. And so it's become, if you going to do th

is, you want it to be something too personal because it's going to get rough and it's going to be times that you say, well, why am I doing this? And you got to be able to go back to an experience that you've had to say this is the reason why I'm doing this. This is why this is valuable to me. All right. All right. So this young man has had dogged determination and he has turned over 6 figure profits. So you put money into IT, people invested in it. How did you fund what your business? When I Whe

n I first started, I bootstrapped I I bootstrapped about $66,000 to start Lumiere. What do you mean bootstraps? Bootstrapped, Meaning I saved all my money. Oh, I saved all my coins. It was mine. It was mine. I had to use you. Have you got you got to have some skin in the game when you first start. You can't expect to get in front of somebody and talk about them putting dollars into your idea. If you're not putting your own resources, you're not putting your own blood, sweat and tears into what y

ou are speaking life into. And I I remember when I post post grad, I really didn't have that many resources, especially for starting a business. I mean, you don't have any money and it's really hard to get a good job when you when you first get out of school too, even even with a degree, the way the market is set up. So I I was Ubering at one point and I was, I mean, I was still at my parents' house at the time. But I took all my coins. I took, I took the money from Ubering and also from my day

job and I saved it. I saved it and I took that money and I kept pitching. I kept pitching. I kept pitching and kept talking about my idea. And then I pitched about 150 times over about five years. And I know because I counted and I counted. I got in front of 150 people I heard 150 knows and on 151st try I got a yes and I and I went through. I went through the bank and I also went through Angel investors and I I got in front of people I kept. I kept getting passed through networks and networks an

d networks and even if someone said no, just because I might have been, that might have been just me being in front of the wrong person, the wrong investor. I was looking for a very specific investor for what I was doing. Alcoholic beverages is it's it's a kind of a weird niche. And I had. I understood that I had to come up. I had to come up with this really sick psychological construct in my head of of hearing no. I had to get obsessed with hearing no until I got in front of the right people to

say yes to me. And when I finally got my yes, I never looked back because I already knew once I got that yes, what I was going to do with that. Yes. And I I made it. I made it happen in my first year. So. So hearing you say that most people have a strategy that they employ and that they go through each one of you sound as though your journey started very personally. You know it, it's it started very personally on this. On this journey, you've had a lot of challenges and you've had a lot of obst

acles. What what would you attribute to yourself that has given you the opportunity and the fortitude to overcome the obstacles that you faced You might have to repeat that one. What kept you going what kept you going? Well for for me when because this is this is a tech space for me and I I didn't I didn't come from a tech space but I would when leaving the office and I'm still you know we're graduating from bootstrap mode too So hats off the people that bootstrap this because that's that's it's

it's difficult to do that but going and continue to see the need I leave sometimes I leave the office and I I not know what my next step was but then I knew the need that I was trying to serve and so going and still having those conversations with people that were on house people that were on the streets. And I continue to say there has to be someone that has a voice for them. There has to be someone that is taking this seriously And so and this isn't just what I considered like a you know like

you would do a drive by and a lot of times you drive by and and you see a person there you've already determined the situation almost as a person you see that does a drive by on the street or a gang member that does a drive by they might would have done a made a different decision have they seen the seven-year old on the swing behind them or maybe seeing the 9 year old on the merry go round and it. And so I was taking time to spend time talking to people and seeing continue to see the need to s

ay, oh, there's I've got to keep pushing. I've got to work harder to make this happen and you just figure it out as you go along. OK Mr. Thomas. Yeah. What I've done was I do in person presentations and my target is, is technical colleges, technical high schools. And when I do these presentations and first thing they said can I get one. So that what that does, it motivates me more because I know there there's a need for what I develop. So that's what inspires me because I know I have something a

nd these people keep inspired. Hey, I need one of when you going to have it ready you know. So that's that's my motivation. OK. The need and the desire. Exactly. For for me, I think it's, I think it's two things. I think I'm just wired up a certain way. I think it goes back to just the way I was raised. I remember I went to go find a store. When I go find a store, I went to go talk to a store that was near my my mother's house. And I went up there and I was just, you know, I was just raised in a

very structured way and it was just about figuring it out. It's about making something happen. And I remember I had came in there and I told my mother, hey, yeah, this this guy was just disrespectful to me. He didn't. He didn't. He didn't let me talk to him. And I drove all the way up here. She lived about an hour away from me. And she was like, you. You leave my house and you go back in there and you talk to that man. And that's just how everything was structured. That's how I am. It's just ab

out finding a way to make things happen. And then two, I think I just carried a spirit of success. I think that if when I, even though there's there's also a spirit of defeat, that always comes after me when when things aren't going right or when I can't figure things out. I always remain that spirit of success. And I know after after I'm done with it, how I'm going to feel and how I'm going to be able to impact other people. And so I think that I think that that level of a spirit in me is what

kept me going is what kept feeling me. And you know it's it's not, it's something that just wakes you up every day. Internal drive, internal drive. Can I, can I say this, I think you also have to be able to envision the end product even when it's not finished. You got to have in your mind of how this will look when it's completed. So what does, so you say that. So my question to you is when do you know that you have been successful? When, when it when do you check the box to say I've done what I

need to do to be where I'm trying to, to be, to to to arrive at the point that I'm trying to reach that journey is never, that journey is never finished. That that's, you know, you still on it? Yes. That journey. I'm still on the journey. I'm going to be on the journey until I go to my grave. So OK, you know, it's never ending. So just like I said, I'm an inventor, so I'm coming up with something new every day and I and I follow that path every day. So no, that journey never ends, just a lifest

yle. It's a life that is your life. And you know, that's what I enjoy doing some people, that's what they enjoy doing. So that's what they're going to follow. So that journey never ends, right? So we're not going in order. OK, I I personally know that that is a tough question. I I personally know that I've I've been successful with something. When I find a solution it leaves it leaves me alone. I I'm always about figuring out how to solve a problem and I'll go. I wake myself up in the morning. I

n my head, I'm like, all right I got to solve this, this this and this and this. I might not get all those problems solved that day, but I know it's about the small wins. Because I when I first started, I was like, man, I got to I got to do something big. I got to I'm not, I'm not feeling successful until I've completed a really, really big solution or or solved a really, really big problem in my business. But it's about the small wins. It's about the small ones. And you got to you have to you h

ave to cherish and you have to feel a sense of joy and happiness over those small wins instead of being obsessed with just accomplishing a big overall problem or objective. And and I think, I think when you, when you when you become obsessed with the small wins you you manage and you pursue different things within your business because you you have a sense of joy about coming to work every day instead of just trying to instead of a monotonous type of routine. I get you. I get you I I celebrate t

he small victories as well. I I would, I would say, I guess from my perspective, it doesn't seem like you're winning unless everybody's winning. And so although you may feel like you've done something, if the other person at the other end of the table or across the table, if they're not winning, then I feel like you know, from my standpoint, I guess we're not winning unless we're all winning. And so if you're not creating something that helps the benefit or helps to achieve something where every

body can kind of play a part, then it's still more work to do. I like that. I want to know whether or not you've had any mentors or if you are mentoring anybody at this point in time, Is there somebody who you're pouring into or did somebody specifically? I I have an idea about who's poured into you but I'd like to hear you share that well. The idea I have that I think once I'm successful that's given back to the neighborhoods and and since that I come up in a world of skills and what I'm trying

to do is start a like a vocational training school. Something that's needed here not only just vocational training academics is just as well important. You need to have academics along with the skills. And the guy I had a conversation with was a fireman yesterday and he said something to me. He said, man, we need to start a fire training in high school for kids. And I thought about it. I said that's a great idea, you know, because if the guys want to be a firefighter when they come out of high

school, they can do that. If they wanted to be in a skilled trade job, I write out of high school. They can do that because when I was going to school, I'm ancient. I'm just to be honest, I'm ancient. When I was in school we had vocational training schools and you was qualified to go straight to a skilled job right out of high school. In the late 70s they started desegregation program that were the worst thing could have happened to the community actually because the kids was getting up at 5:00

or 6:00 in the morning being bussed out to these schools, get back home six, 7:00 in the evening. How they going to obtain any information in their brains And they tired, That's not going to work. But they kept all the county schools, all the county vocational training schools. But we really needed it in the City Schools. And that's my plan. Once this company minds us off like it's supposed to be, is to give back to the neighborhoods and and start a vocational training school for these kids, you

know, right here in the city of Saint Louis. I certainly hope that you're starting on a business plan. I am. I already got the school program set up and everything. I got volunteers. They they knock on my door down when you want to get it started. I say just wait till I get started, then we'll work together. That's a beautiful thing. That's it. I think he deserves a hand for that, everybody. For me, mentoring has come. Really some of my most valuable tips. Most valuable mentoring has come from

people that are right ahead of me. Sometimes if I look for a mentor that's too far, too far down the road, things have changed too much for where I'm at. And so I reach out to people that are maybe one or two steps ahead of me. And I've got some of my most valuable tips, some of my most valuable tools to put, you know, to put together your MVP that's come from people that were only just a couple. They hadn't gone, you know, too far, but they were just a couple steps ahead of myself, OK? You went

to Hampton so are you are you are you giving back to Hampton are you going back to the school are you sharing with with with young people and young entrepreneurs. Yes yes. So when it when it when it comes to to to my Hampton community I I usually would charge for consulting anybody else but anybody whether you're a student or alumni I I don't charge them. I don't know because I think it's very important to get back to your HBCU. And does Lumiere have millions of dollars yet? No. But what you ca

n do is you can give somebody millions of dollars in advice for them that might change the trajectory of how they might operate, run or start their business. So I think it's very important for me to get back to my HBC in that way. As far as me obtaining mentors I went through, one of my biggest organizations that I tapped into was Score, and I'll always be an advocate for it. Score was a huge, huge, huge mentorship network for me and that's how I got a lot of the really great advice that if I di

d not have it, I probably would not have been successful. As I have been in the development process and then also in the operations process once the business was started. I had some excellent, excellent mentors. And as far as mentoring to people, I think the the overall, the overall goal of mentorship is not done unless you can pass on the vision. So once once you get the vision, can you share it with somebody? Can you help them? Can you help others see it? And I think once you can share that vi

sion with others and they can have that same fire to go do whatever whatever it is that they want to do, I think that's when that's when you've been really successful mentorship. And that's actually been my my model for this year. I want to do more for others than I I did for myself because I I made last year all about myself. So then I I want to do more for others this year and help people. So on that mentoring and that that mentoring theme, I want to congratulate the three of you for being coa

ches today because coaches arrive at a specific place and they articulate and provide assessment. They talk to people about the adjustments that they need to make and then we move forward when we step back and we evaluate whether or not there has been improvement. And from the assessment of where you are and the adjustments and your journey and sharing that with this body of individuals, I want to say I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of improvement in the business plans, in the engagement wit

h resources that individuals in this community and those who have taken time out of their busy schedule to come here. And to hear that the great conversation that you were able to provide. I just, I just want to commend you gentlemen and I want to give you a hand. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think when our time is up, I really, you know, they gave me a mic and I get the Oprah moment and I really wanted to take questions from the crowd, but I can't do it. So I want to thank Natanya and her team

and everybody who's here and everybody who showed up. Thank you for showing up as the assistant, as the acting regional. I'm the assistant regional director, but as the acting regional director of the USPTO in Detroit, it is it always warms my heart to come to Saint Louis and to see the individuals who take time out of their schedule to come in here and to listen to the knowledge that is poured out and that is provided. Thank you everybody. Thank you, James. So as we are going to transition to

the next panel, I think it's very important to think about when we think about the next generation, we all, we often think about our people in college and universities. So we also have to think about very young innovators in our communities. People are innovating at a very young age. I'm also ancient, as Marvin said, and through my time at the USPTO, I've had the pleasure of meeting many young innovators. We're talking about, as an example, Roslyn and her daughter Gabby. They identified a proble

m. Barrettes, right. Barrettes are being lost as you're doing the hair. They actually obtained a patent mother and daughter combo. Her daughter was only seven years old when she came up with this innovative idea. So it's very important that we not just look at are innovators that are in college, but we dig a little deeper down and start making sure that we are providing resources and inspiration to our innovators in K through 12. So I think this is going to be a good lead in to our next panel an

d we're going to switch it up a little bit. Panelist, I'm sorry for the last minute, but due to the format of the stage, I'm going to call our subject matter resource experts if you will to the stage so they can talk to you more about the free resources that are available through the USPTO. So as we were just talking about our very young innovators, I'm going to welcome my colleague Reggie Duncan from St. Louis, an educator and definitely a very a person that's very much involved in making sure

that teachers, parents and educators get the connections that they need to inspire our next generation of innovators. So, Reggie, thank you very much. Nathania, cannot stress to you enough the importance of education. Everybody in this room had a teacher. Everybody online had a teacher. Well, that was formal or informal. Everyone had a teacher. My first teacher was my father and fortunate that he's no longer with us, but the lessons that he instilled in me are what allowed me to be here in front

of you. Today I work in the Office of Education at USPTO Education Program Specialists. I've been blessed enough to do a lot of things in my career, one of which was winning a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. It's actually the highest award STEM award you can win in K through 12 in the country. I say that to say that opportunity along with others are what led me to United States Patent Trademark Office. So Deputy Director Brent got me going already talking

about the free burger because I'm going to tell you something right now and nothing hits like free right. That being said, we have a number of free resources here for you all. The first I want to highlight is one that brought me here because during my time with the PIMPS award, they showed us all these different federal agencies, these opportunities you can go all these different P DS. And in my time teaching, I was 14 years, I taught mathematics and science with 5th graders. And I'm going to te

ll you something right now, it is not easy, right? Especially being a black male, a black male in education, you're talking 1 to 2% of the population, right? And there's a lot of different hats that you're wearing when you're in that situation. I was not aware of a lot of the resources that were out there, especially the resources from Office Education, that could help that load a little bit. So in the vein of free, one thing that came across my table at the time that I won the award was the Nat

ional Summer Teachers Institute. And I'm going to tell you something right now when they told you, oh, you can do these things at NASA, you can do these things here, you can do these things here. All I heard was free trip and I said I'm going. I had no clue how much it was not going to be to change my life, but the life of my students and the life of my colleagues. So last year we were here in Saint Louis, We were at Saint Louis University. We brought about 100 teachers from around the country.

This year we're celebrating our 10th anniversary. So we're going to be in Alexandria at our main campus. As you can see here, you can go to the QR code. It's going to take you to our main landing page or education landing page. It will be one of the first links up there. If you know a teacher or you are a teacher or you have a child or you know a child, please share that information about this opportunity. Teachers that are selected outside of a 50 square mile radius, we will pay for their fligh

t. We will pay for the hotel accommodations, we will pay for food throughout the length of the program. Again, if you know a teacher, oh good, I'm glad people getting their phones out now. If you know a teacher, you know how crucial that is for us. There are some different guidelines if you walk within the 50 square miles, but that being said, this was truly one of the best PDS I've ever been through in my career. And I'm talking about I've done them all. I've done PDS where at the end of the we

ek you were expected to fly a single engine plane. This was up there. With that I've delivered PD in the in the deserts of Dubai. This is up there with that. So please do share that information and change the life of not only a teacher, but obviously changing the life of a teacher. You know you're changing the life of a child because the end of the day, we know your geographic location should not determine whether or not you become an inventor. I will say that again, your geographic location, yo

ur access to resources, who you know or whose class your child happens to land in, which was something that was very crucial, important for me. I was able to get some of these resources prior to my time coming to USPTL and I'm telling everybody who will listen. But that's not fair. That's not right because the child in Mr. Duncan's class, they have access or they know about these different programs at the national level. So that in that same vein, we have our equip HQ website itisequippedhq.org

will redirect you. That's kind of the quickest one to remember, but it will direct you to our equip hq.uspto.gov website. Because again, it does not matter where you are in this country, you should have access to these resources. This is a free, and I'll say it again, free. Like Deputy Director Brent said, nothing tastes good like free. OK Website K through 12 web website The lessons, everything's great. Bandit, it's all great. Bandit. We have lesson plans, games, activities, resources to get yo

ur child not only interested, but to get them the skills that they need to be excited about creativity, ingenuity and innovation in their classrooms, right. I've done this for 14 years with kids in the classroom. If anything, what I see more often than not is creativity being suppressed. You can ask any teacher in this country what happened in a room for the third graders that got paper clips. So you don't tell them exactly what they're supposed to do with them. OK, so we need to take that creat

ivity, give them the tools they need, right? To see that success and also to teach them how to protect their intellectual property. These kids have these wonderful ideas, and they'll say, oh, how can I protect my idea? Well, you can't protect an idea, but you can protect the original work, right? It starts with that foundation. And I'm really glad that Nathaniel brought up. It's not just universities. Yes. Our office does offer K through 20 resources, but it starts in that foundation with the st

udents when they're young, we got to get them early and we have to get them consistently, right. So that being said, these resources are online for you. We know the importance of representation. We have our inventor collectible trading cards. We're actually going to have some of those back over here. I actually will be at South by Southwest. I think what two weeks from now giving a presentation on some of our inventor cards, some of those cars will also be integrated with AR technology. It's com

ing, right? So when a beta stage, if you want to see a what I call my party trick, come check us out here during our meet, the subject matter expert, and I'll show you a few things that you can do with those cards. But you know, when I was a kid, I did not have a teacher that looked like me. Well, it's pardon me. I could count the number of teachers that look like me on one hand Until I got to high school. Until I got to college. The person who introduced me to the importance of being a mentor a

nd being a teacher and who set me on my path was a black woman who told me the importance of giving back to my community and the importance of helping our students and in turn helping all students. Right, So these cards here, kids can learn a little bit about the stories of the inventors. We know the importance of people, seeing people that look like them and understanding you. I can do that as well. That being said, we also have our young, adventurous stories that we want to highlight for you a

s well. Just like Natanya said, they're seven-year olds with patents. I'll talk 5th grade. If you tell a room full of 10 and 11 year olds is a 7 year old with a patent, it's on right? So it's important for us to share these stories. OK? We have lots of free resources and programs that we offer for you all. Again, you can find us here at the QR code, but you also at uspto.gov/education and I will be here obviously the rest of the afternoon. If you have any questions, want to stop by and we'll get

you hooked up. But before I go Nsti Free, free, free. OK, Do you want to give that a heads up that the application does close March 31st? That's next month. NSCI will take place July 21st and 26th. And again in Alexander's. If you know a teacher want a free trip, come check us out. It is a very high, highly competitive process. I do want to share that with you all. Obviously we can't bring every teacher in the country for every cohort, but please do share that information. If you have any quest

ions, come check me out and I'll get you hooked up. Thank you. Thank you, Reggie. Thank you. So we also heard, I think it was Marvin mentioned searching, right. And a lot of times people don't understand the value of making sure that you get your intellectual property protected sooner than later because we are first inventor to file. We still meet people that say, oh I'm taking my notes, I have documentation as to when I invented this. That's good for you, but that's not going to be good for you

to obtain the protection that you need. So it's very important. The other thing is searching is very important because even for trademark, you don't want to start building the brand. You have inventory and then you get a cyst and decease letter in the mail, right? And they telling you you bet get rid of all your inventory and you better get ready to re educate your folks. So when we talk about searching it brings up our next subject matter expert from the Patent and Trademark Resource Center. A

nd when we say free, I have to add this. Oftentimes, I don't know about you all, but when I hear free, I'm thinking it ain't that good. Okay, it may be free, but it really ain't that good. But our free resources are excellent. OK. So please pay attention to the next all the speakers. And again, we will be around after the program, so you can connect with us one-on-one. So next I'm going to bring Eleanor to the stage. She's a librarian at our Patent and Trademark Resource Center near us right her

e at Saint Louis Public Library. Yes, Thank you, Nathania. Thank you everyone for being here. I am so happy to be here. My name is Eleanor Chatterton and I am the Patent and Trademark librarian at the Saint Louis Public Library. So unlike like Reggie and like the people who are going to follow me in this panel, I don't actually work for the USPTO. But I'm still a USPTO resource because the PTO has been collaborating with libraries to increase access to information about intellectual property for

over 150 years. So let me take you back to 1870 when everything was print and it all lived in DC. So if you had an invention and you wanted to research it, the searching is really important. What are you going to do? Take a train? Maybe ride a horse? I mean, like Reggie was saying, it shouldn't depend on where you live. You should have that access. So starting in 1871, they started sending out copies of printed patents to selected libraries throughout the country and Saint Louis Public Library

was one of those. Now, as times have changed, so have the materials. So in addition to print, we got some nice microform. For a while we were getting cd-roms. Now everything's online. So I always tell people start at the USPTOS website, uspto.gov that's where we start. It's all there. So you might say, well, why do we need a Patent and Trademark Resource Center? If I can just get to this online, Well, everything is there. It's a little bit overwhelming and in about the half a dozen years that I'

ve been doing this, I have seen the website, just it just keeps improving. But there's a lot there. So I think it's a little bit like so you find yourself in an unfamiliar city, you know that it's got everything you need, but how do you find it now? 1 great suggestion is to go to the Public Library. They'll help you for sure. But if you're like me, you're probably going to turn to that little computer you've got in your pocket. It'll give you directions, it'll give you suggestions. So I'm kind o

f like an app on your phone in a way. So if you were to say, hey, I've got this great idea for an invention, how to how does the patent process work? I can tell you and I can show you where to go to find that information. And if you say how much is that USP tail going to charge me in fees, I can show you that fee schedule. If you say I'd really like to protect my brand by registering my trademark, I can show you a preview of the form so that you can be all prepared and make the process go as smo

othly as possible. I can show you the trademark database and give you tips for searching, and if you just, I don't really know where to start. The library is a great place to start. We can have a conversation. There's that IP identifier tool that I've seen up on the screen a bit. That's pretty cool, but also sometimes it's nice just to talk to a person. Now I'm a librarian, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't give legal advice. So we eventually get to a point where I just can't go any further. And at t

hat point I can direct you to the list of patent practitioners. And I could also tell you about the the free resources, the patent pro bono program, the law School Clinic certification program, great stuff through the USPTO. So that is what you can get at a Patent and Trademark Resource Center. So I work for the Saint Louis Public Library. I work at the Central Library, which is a beautiful and palatial building. That's about a 5 minute walk from where we are right here and it's a great place to

visit. I'd love to see any and all of you there, but if you think you know if this is maybe isn't in my plans, I have talked to people on the phone and walked them through the steps to get them to the information they were looking for. Emails Great 'cause I can send links and screenshots. I've had web meetings occasionally with people. So however you want to connect, I am delighted to make it happen. So I can't thank the USPTO enough for inviting me to be here and tell you about the PTRC. I've

really been enjoying the panels. And after they're done, I'm really looking forward to the meet and greet that we're going to have here. For our people who are here in person, I'd love to meet you. So thank you. Thank you, Eleanor. So we've heard a lot about brands, right? And that is definitely. A primary interest that we learn about when we're meeting with entrepreneurs, small business owners, they want to know how do I protect my logo? What does that mean? And I meet people, I will say this,

I meet people, they appear like they got all together and they're like, yeah, Nathaniel, I got my trademark, blah, blah, blah. And we look up and it's ATM. So it's like, yeah, you have your trademark, but you don't have a registered trademark. So it's very important for people to understand the difference. And so I'm honored to bring one of our trademark outreach specialist to the stage, Christina. And she's also a trademark attorney. So she's going to share information about the free resources

that are available to you to help you protect your brand. Christina, good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon. I'm Christina Callaway. I'm an attorney advisor with the Trademarks Outreach Office at the United States Patent and Trademark Office and we are the office that provides trademark specific programming through live presentations and through online webinars. So we're the office that you can come to for free to request that an attorney come to speak with an organization, whether it be your

organization, your business about the trademark registration process, generally about intellectual property and provide that trademark specific programming that you may want to learn about the federal registration process. I also served at the USPTO as a trademark examining attorney. So I was one of the attorneys when you file an application that is reviewing the application. So I do know a lot even about that process and the things that we're looking for when we're reviewing those applications.

Our mission is to register trademarks. It is not to hold back a trademark or anything of that nature. So we want to make sure that we're providing you with all the resources. These free resources will keep saying that word so that when you follow that application, that application is going to go through the public application and you're going to have that R with a symbol that coveted R with a circle around it for your registered registered trademarks. If you would like our office or an attorney

from our office to come speak to an organization or a group, you can contact us at tmoutreach@uspto.gov It will be an attorney on my team like myself and we'll we can provide that programming live in person or through a webinar. We also provide many resources online resources, these free resources that you can access. The 1st that I'd like to point out is our Trademark Registration Toolkit that you see here. You can scan the QR code or I have the cards in the back here, just want to show them t

o you. And this is going to provide some general information about what a trademark is, the benefits of going through that protection process. And then we can provide you with some basics about the federal registration process for trademarks. You can also access it, access it online. Like Eleanor said, Everything that we're mentioning here you can find at uspto.gov that's always going to be your base and foundation of getting that information. We also have those online webinars that you can acce

ss. When we provide these webinars, you are going to see an attorney like myself live. It's not like a recorded video that you're going to see. They're going to be live webinars where you're able to ask us questions specifically to the attorneys While we're presenting those those webinars, we also have our trademark basics boot Camp. This is an 8 week module that you can access that we're going to go through the entire trademark registration process from the very beginning, from the fundamentals

what is a trademark all the way down to how to protect and maintain your trademark registration after you receive it. It's an 8 week module. The next one is starting on April of 2024. You can go to uspto.gov to register. You do not have to accept attend each of those specific modules. You can attend the ones that you feel are most specific to what you're looking for. As far as the subject matter, we do provide like one, for example, going through that application process. You can sit down, open

your computer, go along with us and actually file your application at the same time while we're going through that and be able to ask the attorney while we're hosting the webinar any questions that you have about the application process. So that's a free resource that you can register and go through that process to file your federal registration as well as we provide just some general information and resources about, like I said, intellectual property, trademark, specific resources about filing

and maintenance resources as well as going through the federal registration process. So we're providing all of that for free. And like I said, your base and your start is always going to be our trademark registration toolkit. I'll be here at the end during the networking session, if you have any questions. Say you start, you haven't started that process, so you want to know what that process is like. If you don't even know what a trademark is or have an understanding of that, I can explain that

. Or if you've already started the process, you started your application, you've received an office action or you have some experience with that process. I'm here to answer any questions that you may have about the trademark registration process. Thank you. Thank you, Christina. Thank you. So when we are attending national programs, for example, we were honored to be at the National Business League Conference. And we meet people and they're like, we love your trademark videos. We love them, love

them, love them. And guess what? I was able to get my trademark without an attorney. So we're happy about that, but we also want to make sure that you're aware of the free legal resources. Because for me, yeah, I can do things myself. If I can get something done free, why wouldn't I take that route? So I think this is a perfect time to introduce my colleague Anat. He is a member of our free legal resource team. Anat, welcome to the stage. Thank you, Nathaniel. Thank you for having me here today

. So I'm going to my name is Anand Desai. I'm a patent examiner at the United States Patent Trademark Office. So when you file a patent application examiner's review your application determine whether you will receive a patent or not. In addition, right now I'm working in the Office of Enrollment and Discipline where we manage two resources for independent inventors and small businesses to get free legal services. Our first program is called the Patent Pro Bono Program and that program is a nati

onwide resource for independent inventors and small businesses to get matched with patent practitioners, attorneys and agents, to get free legal services, to file a patent application or to discuss your patentable subject matter. And what you what you do is you work with our regional nonprofit partners and they will match you with an attorney if you meet the criterias that we use for the programs in each state. And then the way you find it is by going to the USPTO Gov website as everybody's ment

ioned earlier today, and you'll find the Pro Bono Patents website. In addition, if you have questions about the program, you can e-mail us. We have an e-mail box where we can answer questions from individual inventors and small businesses at pro bono at USPSPT o.gov So if you have questions, we can answer your questions as well. So the second program is similar to the first program in terms of finding free legal services, but it's called the Law School Clinic Certification Program. And in additi

on to being a service that provides services for patent legal services, they also provide trademark legal services. So certain law schools across the nation part are certified to work in front of the United States Patent Trademark Office where a professor is responsible for a class that trains future lawyers, students, law students to get experience to work in front of the USPTO and they prosecute patent applications and trademark applications. So they you you could go to this website theuspto.g

ov law school clinic and you can find there's a list of law school programs that are that are available to inventors and you can look to see they're I they're listed with the ability to do trademark work patent work or they do both So you can find out what kind of service you want and then you can ask them if they're available to take your intellectual property applications to see if they can work for you. And so these are two good resources that are available that we just want to make sure that

people are aware of. And if you have any questions, I will be here also for a subject matter time period to talk about any questions you may have. We also have a postcard on the table with AQR code, So you can have that also. Thank you. And not and I know we have a disclaimer on this slide if you notice and it says, yeah, the the legal services are free, but as an applicant, you're still responsible for your filing fees. But there's more good news. If we couldn't give you more good news, I woul

d be amazed. But the good news is just going to keep happening. So at the USPTO, we understand that as an entrepreneur or small business owner, you're short on resources, right? You're trying to build your product, you're trying to, you know, get your market research done. You're trying to do all these things. So we have reduced filing fees for patent applicants and when I say reduce, we talking about a bar, we talking about 80% off, right. So that's a big deal, right. So that's important to be

mindful of like so don't get discouraged when you hear, oh, it's going to cause you a lot of money to file that patent. Well, not necessarily so because if you're a micro entity you would get 80% off the fees. So that's significant. So be mindful of that and one other important thing that I think we should remind ourselves to tell everyone, as I mentioned earlier, we're first inventor to file, but there's more good news. So we have something called a provisional patent application. So when you t

hink of it, a provisional patent application is basically putting your yourself in line, right. And I don't know the correct fee off the top of my head right now, but we're talking about roughly $100. That application is not examined, but guess what you get, you can go out and say patent pending, right. So you've been in the store, you picked up a product and you see patent pending. That person is putting you on notice. Don't play around. I've already solved this problem. OK, I'm already ready.

So that's very important when you're trying to get investors, you know, we talked about Shark Tank, they're not going to want to invest in you. If you're not, you haven't taken the initiative to protect your intellectual property. So just be mindful of that the importance of filing early, you know, if you have this innovative invention and making sure that you're aware of provisional patent application. And so with that, as we mentioned, we've got an amazing website, right, a lot of information.

I've been working at the PTO for 35 years. I started when I was 5 so stop trying to calculate, OK, 35 years next month. And sometimes I'm like, woo, there's a lot of information, right? And it's valuable information, but you got to know how to get to it. So one thing that we want to make sure that you're aware of, it's a great place to start. It clearly is entitled Inventor and entrepreneurial resources, right? And it's got a marketing link. So even if you don't have your cell phone out, it's j

ust uspto.gov/inventors. And guess what? You come to this page, you're going to connect with amazing people like Christina, Eleanor, Anod, and so many, many, many more people. You're also going to be able to connect with our regional offices. We know we have James in the house, but we have a large virtual audience online connecting with us throughout the US. So you'll be able to learn about which regional office is located closest to you. They want you to stop by. It's very important as we say t

o be able to meet in person when we talk about mentorship, connecting with like minded people, right, Giving you a guide like because there's so many pitfalls and challenges, being an entrepreneur starting your own small business and you're going to learn from each other as was mentioned throughout these conversations. And not only that, you get connected with other people. So I connect you with one person and another person is going to connect that person with someone else. So that's very impor

tant. And on this web page, we don't have thin skin, so we definitely want your feedback. So if you go on here and you say, Nathaniel, I don't know what you were talking about, I was still confused by going here. We want to know your feedback because this page is for you, right? We want to make sure that the information here is relevant and timely. So it is set up so that no matter what stage you are in in your process, whether you're just getting started or maybe you're more seasoned, it's even

a link to take you to our startup page which will help you get access to funding, which we're going to have that conversation coming up on the next panel. But it's just so very important for us to make sure that not only we give you an awareness of our free resources, but how to access them. Because if you know about it but you still can't get to it, it's not useful for you. So just want to make sure that this is a great starting place. So it's just uspto.gov/inventors. So before we get to the

next panel, I got to be mindful of time. I just want to put in a plug that we have programming throughout the year, right? And we celebrate Black History Month throughout the year, if you will, because we bring black innovators and small business owners to the stage throughout the year in various programs. So as you can see here, this is just a glimpse of some things that we do. Primarily we're very proud of Invention Con, right. So that is a program that brings all small business owners, entrep

reneurs and creators together. It is typically a two day program. So you're going to hear from people that you can relate to people that may be in that spot. I think that Byron mentioned you want to connect with someone that's at a similar place that you are in. Your innovation journey is a great place to come. We have Women's History Month company coming up and that's our Women's Entrepreneurship Symposium. But we also are doing a we program every month. So we were delighted to be at Heydays ye

sterday to engage with women entrepreneurs and show that support. So this is just a reminder that we do this all year round, but not only that you can access programming, right? So say for whatever reason you just learning about us, which you should have already learned about us, but you can go to this web page and you can access videos from past events and there's so many Nuggets left from our panelists. We had Stacey Spike participate in Black innovation and entrepreneurship program a few year

s ago. He is the founder of Movie Pass. He's brilliant. He just, he just came out with a book. I'm in the process of reading it. So just please check out our events and join us in the future. And then also you can watch a video at a time and place that's convenient for you. So thank you. Are are we ready for our next panel? And so access the capital. Oh, yes, yes. And I think we heard the statistic like 2% like what? And it's even less for black women, right. So that's, it's like you might as we

ll say less than 1% for us, right. And so we, we know it's not easy. And so I'm delighted that we're able to bring this insightful conversation to the stage. So first, I'm going to welcome moderator extraordinaire Shawn Wilkerson. So he's going to introduce the panel access to funding. Thank you, Nathaniel. If our panel can come on up, we'll have a seat. So this panel, I'll introduce myself, I'm Sean Wilkerson, and we're going to talk about accessing funding. And on this panel, we have three won

derful individuals and I am the only person here who hasn't worked for Stacy. So. So we're going to talk about what's available to inventors at different stages during the process, how you can better prepare yourself when you're asking for funding. And I'm going to start with the panel, starting with Kevin here. Kevin, I just want you to talk about first introduce yourself, who you work for and what it is you do for the innovation community. So Kevin Wilson, Executive Director of Small Business

Empowerment Center and I work for Stacey and still work for 30 years. I've been working for you in some way of the shape or four, No, but we work primarily in the empowerment zone helping small business owners grow and go microphone. There we go. Is it all testing, testing. There you go. All right. That does sound bigger now. Yeah. So we, we work primarily in the empowerment zone and surrounding low to moderate income census tracts helping small business owners access SBA lending, certification

and contracting. Stacy, you're up. My name is Stacy Fowler. I am the SVP for Minority and Small Business Empowerment with the Saint Louis Development Corporation, which we call SLDC. We are the economic development arm for the City of Saint Louis and I am responsible for what we call the Economic Empowerment Pillar within our Economic Justice Action Plan. And with the NET Plan, I was required to open up and Economic Empowerment Center, which is called the Northside Economic Empowerment Center, r

ight next to Sumner High School, which is the oldest high school West of the Mississippi. Yes, yes. We were very intentional about where we went and what we were doing because we wanted to be on the north side of the city to work with the community and the residents that live on that side and provide resources and services to those individual companies and future companies because we help people start, grow, sustain their businesses. And we also work with the community surrounding that. And to s

upport that work, the mayor saw, I knew Mayor Jones saw the importance of that and she put $280 million aside for us to begin to do some of the work that we are doing on the north side of the city. Thank you and Todd, my name is Todd Gilliard. I'm the project director of the Missouri. MBDA Business center. We're managed by the Chicago Supplier Diversity Council and that Stacy Fowler is my boss. I am not that old. We we work with minority businesses. Three things that we focus on as a center is a

ccess to capital, technical assistance and new emerging markets. We are agency Without Borders as you say. We are allowed to work across the country globally even we have clients in Belize, We have clients in Senegal, Africa and we have clients in in many states across the United States. I I was trying to name them all, but I'm not. And so we we help businesses grow. We help them get access to contracts and opportunities that just may not be here in the in Saint Louis, but it may be in other sta

tes or maybe something federally. So we work with our network of business centers and federal agencies to make it happen. Thank you. So what I want to do with this panel is talk about the story of the inventor. When you begin a process, you have to find resources. You don't always know where to go, who to connect with. And from that point, once you have those connections, you build your session of your story with my business plan, my marketing opportunities, where do I go for funding? And then o

nce I have that opportunity, where can I go for investors. And that's what this panel is going to talk about today. And we're going to start with Stacy. Yes, you are. OK. So the reason he's starting with me is, yes, both of these men have worked with me, but both of their organizations support what we do at the Northside Economic Empowerment Center. And so the center was really thinking about when we were thinking about what the center would do, we wanted to bring resources into the community in

stead of always having the community come out, come downtown, come here, come there, go everywhere. So SLDC is acting as a convener of services for businesses from helping them with technical assistance, helping them understand how to write their business plan, helping them understand how to do their marketing and their branding. Then you can get a trademark. I just heard that and then making sure that they have what I'm going to call the foundation ready to go before they would go to a Kevin or

to a Todd organization. So if you don't understand these things that you need in terms of your business acumen to make sure that you're really doing business. And so the center's only been open a year, but we've touched 1100 businesses, we've helped people get their business license, we've helped people get their EIN number. Because you know what, in our community we think just because we register our business at the Secretary of State, we in business, right? Yeah, you in business, but you ain'

t legitimate. OK, let's talk real. Right. And so people didn't realize that because they don't know, because there's no one sharing the information with them and really helping them understand what it means to be in business, right. And so SODC was giving money away. We couldn't give the money away because these businesses weren't businesses. They were hobbies. They were in their houses. They were whatever. And we spent a year helping people understand you need a business license, you need an EI

N number, you need all these basic things to be a real business. And they were like, I don't understand why I can't get the money. I don't understand. Well, OK, these are the things we need you to do. But once we put you on that trajectory, now you're beginning to be a business. Now you can go to other places and get just additional resources because they're going to ask you for the same things. And so they were like, OK, I get it now. So that was the first, I think we had like $5,000,000 that w

e gave away then we're sitting on $37 million now that we're working businesses through. But see they had, they worked it out over here so they could come over here and apply for the next pot of money, right. And I will tell you 1314 day five more $1,000,000 go hit the streets and there's going to be a revolving loan funds. It's going to be one for contractors who do construction work in the city and then it's going to be one for profits and nonprofits for profits and nonprofits for them to acce

ss additional capital. So we we start but then when they need to go higher or they need things beyond what I'm going to call technical assistance business acumen and those foundational things to really become a legitimate business, I hand them off to Kevin. So when people come to you, what stage are people coming for information, Are you getting beginners, intermediate, we get everything. So the way we have our our center divided up, we're divided up into two hubs, we're contractor hub and we're

for profit non profit hub. We help people start businesses. We help people who just say, I just started, but I don't know what I need to do next. And then we help those existing businesses and everybody when they come, they want money. I, even the people who don't even have a business, ask for money. I'm like, you're not even a business yet. It's like, can we at least make you a business before you ask me for money? Right. But that tends to be the number one question. And so we work with people

so that they can be ready. We're massaging them and getting them ready because I consider us to be the social service money because they really want hard money from banks and venture capitalists and other people like that. But you, you know, it was a big no. If you go it to them when you come that the way you came at me, they're not going to even talk to you. So we're trying to package them and help them understand these are the things that you must have from a business plan when you ask you, w

ell, you got some cash flow. No. You got AP and L No. Well, what banker institution you think you're going to to get those dollars. So there are some things that you just have to have. And so through our convening of partners, you know my favorite story. Stacy is the guy who parked his car in the middle of the street and just came in and asked for a check. He's not kidding, right? John Cottage. He got out of the middle of his car, left it in the middle of the street, middle of the street coming

in because he thought he was going to pick up his Grant funded money in the cinema. We we have wonderful stories. Yeah. Well he knew he was getting it and going just coming here for my new dollar check. I like that. Yes that. So we work with you know our motto in the center is we do with and that for, which means you have to be an active participant in the process and we do our dornness to meet people where they are to help them get where they want to go. So someone walking in, What is it you? W

hat is it you need to see? And what is it you would like to see? When people come in to be prepared, and if they're not prepared, what services do you offer that help somebody get prepared to move on to the next level? No problem. We want people to come in as their authentic self. Come in being truthful about who you are, where you are, so that we can be authentically helping you get where you want to be. So if you think you have but you don't know, you have whatever you think you have, bring th

at with you. Like I said, we meet people where they are. We have something called the boss portal, which is our business office support system where we have people register, we have them take a mini assessment and then that and it just depends on which track they are on. In terms of if you're starting a business, we want to know what what is your great idea, what are you trying to do, what you want to do if you've already started your business or what have you done so we can identify what's miss

ing. And then if you're in business, where are you trying to go now? You know, COVID really wrecked traffic on our small and minority businesses in the community. We lost some and we don't even have the data to really know what the number is, but we lost a lot of businesses. And so we're doing our doing this to sustain and maintain the ones that were able to hang on through that process, to help them continue to move at a pace that they can afford to do and stay in business, 'cause we, as you he

ard them, say we need these businesses, we need small businesses, makes this world go. And so everybody has creative ideas. You know, sometimes we can't give everybody everything they want, but if we can point you to the right direction and give you the resources and the information and know what to do, I think we're doing you the best service we can private at that time. Excellent. All right. Well, we're going to move over to Todd and we're going to talk about MBDA. And at this time, Todd, can

you talk about what type of funding opportunities come from MBDA? So, so MBDA, we funding opportunities, we work with banks, we work. So we run the gamut. And when I say we are, we are agency Without Borders. We work a lot with CDFI funds, private equity investors, banks, we, we, we run the gamut. But the thing about it is they're all over the United States. We even have a a private equity investor from Europe who is investing in the project that one of our clients have in Tennessee. So we you k

now we we have, we have investors as far as China that are looking to invest in in certain products and things like that that we work with. So we kind of run the gamut. We we don't know we you know we look and see what the client what your need is, what the niche is. You know it's just like with anything you know we we we kind of have a good idea what our investors are looking, what investors are looking for what they want to invest in and then we we kind of go after and so we work with some, we

work with some banks like one of them is Liquid Capital in Philadelphia that works a lot with us with some clients who may get opportunities, may get contracts but not have the funds to to start the contract or mobilization looking for mobilization money in some instance they will give that mobilization money. It's really called factoring. But this we work with this company specifically because the interest, the interest rates are low are are are they're not too high. And then they they work wi

th the individual company to set a plan for them and they give the money out quarterly. They they look at their assess your business, they assess where you at. They'll look and say OK we'll give you know case in mind. We had a client that won a $17 million contract out of the city of New York to provide products. We work with them to get the money. But what they did with them was they looked at the employees, they looked at the shipping, they look at the branding that they had to do all of that,

figured out what it would cost to run that for three, three months. So they gave them that upfront money for three months. Along with that, they helped the company see that by the end of the loan, the company really didn't need the whole 17,000,000 because revenue started to pull in from what they were doing. And so because of that because they found an easier way to streamline what they were doing and so they were able to cap the money and they didn't have to pay back the whole 17 in most case

s. So that's why we kind of work with them. They there's a special bank but really we we you know we just we just you know I hate to say it but we beat the hedges on trying to get the money for our clients. We work a lot, we work with Kevin a lot to help our clients. So we just go try to find and get it done. So when people come to you what do you see is the biggest obstacle or challenge that people can't get over and understanding what I need to provide to you for funding. I, I this is this is

the thing that kind of like gets first of all they think you can just give them money and they think you supposed to do it. They think like Nah y'all the federal you supposed to give me this money. And and that's not the case a lot of times what I think hinders some of the people I see like I have a client that has a really great product and it's a but he is a reseller of this product. He doesn't invent this product and he wants to get this major contract, this major contract is going to have. H

e has to guaranteed shipment of like 34th like I think it's like 3000 units and he has to do this a month and it's going to ship across different areas for this company within this within the United States. He sees the money and he wants to jump at the money because he can get the he he can probably get the contract. The problem is I said listen you need to have you need to have a letter a a guaranteed letter with your sit down with your attorney and your distributor got to say that he can super

vise that because here's the thing our brand is on the look on the hook when we go tell this major corporation yeah he can do it and and we're we're advocating for this person. Your brand is on the hook because it's your first time jumping off the porch and doing something this major. So you really need to process in some law and all situations ain't good situations and so that's hard when you have to tell a company that who wants to grow And so I I tell companies be realistic about your goals w

here is your you know I I look at your business plan I look at your capability statement. I look at your company's seesep plan to see what you going to do. What do you have, what do you have, What's the C cell plan? What's the C cell plan of C cell plan? I call it AC cell plan, but other people call it a different plan, but it's a five year plan projection for your business and in that plan you have things within the plan COVID hit, OK, this is what we're going to do. This is this. You have to h

ave those things have to be solid because it it is a lot of people think I'm going to get in business, I'm going to get rich or I'm going to get this government contract, I'm going to get rich and I'm going to get and they don't take into consideration the package shipping this and the small thing. So I, you know part of the job is you know and our team is really being realistic with people that walk through the office and being able to assess where you know what the needs is. We have a vetting

form with embedded in our application and we sit down as a team on Mondays and we'll talk about you know can we really do what this person is asking us to do. And if we can't, that's why we have straight good strategic partners like Stacy, like Kevin, you know that we can say hey, go here, get this, go here, get that and and when you're ready come back. Now we're ready to go get this. So you know, and so yeah, that's that's that's it, great. So when people are looking for a funding opportunity,

when is the right time for them to come to MBDA? Is it always, let's go to MBDA or should I be going somewhere else? What makes MBDA the right choice? What makes MBDA the right choice is when you're ready, when you, when you have a relation, a banking relationship, when you have a relationship, right. When you when we can look at and we can see based off your company portfolio the things that you have done and the things that you have financed, right. Because by the time you come to us you're sa

ying, look it's an opportunity in Georgia I want to seize on or hey I seen this, they, they have this federal, you know whatever they have this program and I want to, I want to seize the opportunity. So the good time is where you, you, you. All those things, the the, the basic small things are in place where we could take the package. We can look at the package and we know exactly where to put it. So you did your homework, you're coming with, you come in like my my friend, my colleague in San Fr

ancisco like to say, you're coming with your company receipts. And when you come in with your company receipts, we're able to see best how to serve you and where to place you and really look at the opportunity for you. And then advocate. And I say again and I always have to say this, we can't make nobody give you any money. We can't make no one give you a contract. Only thing we can do is advocate and and what we advocate off of is your company and what you have done and that sweat equity that y

ou put in there in that company. And so that's. Yeah. And do you look at the intellectual property that the company has during this process? Depends on how much money they asking for. Depends on how much money they asking for. Yeah. And in some cases. In some cases, yeah. It, it depends on. Yeah. It depends on how much you're asking for and and what kind of leverage we need to make it happen. Great. All right. Well, we're going to move over to Kevin now and Kevin kind of has a unique job. I I le

arned a lot when we got to talk earlier in our session before and it it's interesting because he not only helps people understand what they need, but he goes after the loans for them and with them. So I want to talk about that when people are coming to you. Well, first of all, explain that a little more about why people are coming to you and what they need to be prepared with and then we'll go into how you doctor alone. So I'm always asking that question every day, like why are you coming to me?

OK, so, so, so just, you know, the two-minute background of the madness of Kevin Wilson. So, so I started off in Stacy's shop you know 20 something years ago as senior loan officer doing SBA lending, microloans, TIF tax abatement, all the things. And so and I think there was this pivotal moment where they started contracting me out to other organizations to do their underwriting for their loans and I was like, so I thought I worked for SL. Lisa, yeah, you're going to be working for some other p

eople too. So I I started to understand the complexity of underwriting for other organizations and then I just started getting people coming to me like hey, could I get a loan from so and so like, OK, let me figure it out for you. And so that has kind of been my career since is that we try to figure out where you are right now and then where you want to go and then what's that pathway. I will be honest to say I can't do what I do without partners like Saint Louis Development Corporation, Stacey

in particular and Todd Gilliard at MBDA because and and Lynette Watson at SBDC. Because I need those wrap around services that can help the client or potential borrower get the things they need. So that we can get them to the lender funder that can make it happen. And so I, I, I, I humbly say that I think I understand what lenders are looking for. And then I can help translate that to layman's terms so that they can understand the, the pathway to success. And part of what we talked about was and

Todd, were you going to comment? Go ahead. No, I was just going to say Ditto because you know having this job, I would sit in cabin office and be like, hey, what you doing. But I'm really asking questions. I'm trying to ask questions for my clients. And so you know, he, he, he is the man. He is the man. So let's talk about what people bring to you and how you package that. What is it? What is it people are really needing to bring to you to show that alone as possible and how does that packaging

help them move forward in the process. So great question. So you know, when you think about what the typical SBA lender is looking for and when we talk about SBA loans, we're talking about Small Business Administration and that is a guarantee that they give to a bank on the borrower's behalf to guarantee the loan to mitigate the risk of doing a deal for you, right. So what we're looking for is the documentation, the information, the patents, the all the things, all the documentation that is nee

ded to help a lender wrap their head around your deal, right. And then I'm there to help you put it together to understand what you're getting into. So you know exactly up front like, OK, so I'm, I need these documents, I'm giving up this, I'm giving them my first born child, etcetera. I got to give a vial of blood. I'm going to explain all of that stuff to you on the front end and then you make your choice whether you want to continue on, right. And then we typically follow through with you to

approval closing and then afterwards so that you know like, OK, so now that you've signed your Lifeway, this is what you need to do to stay in compliance because when I was working for Stacey back at SLDCI used to have to find deals, package deals, close them and service them. And when servicing, you know, sometimes you've got to liquidate people's dreams. And I don't want that for you, right? I don't want that for myself, right. So, so we want you to be as successful as you possibly can when yo

u're going into these financial transactions. And part of what you do, we talk about loans, we talk about grants, but you also deal with tax credits. Can you talk about how tax credits benefit people as a funding opportunity? Great question. So many times tax credits are you know, kind of passive types of things. So you know whether that is, you know, I focus a lot of my work in the empowerment zone. So the empowerment Zone has a wage tax credit that if you are located in the Empowerment Zone an

d you are hiring in Empowerment zone employees, and when I say hiring not 10,000 times, they're on payroll, right, then you can get $2000 or more off of your federal taxes per employee. And so many Empowerment zone businesses that I work with can get up to $30,000 off of their federal taxes because they're employing Empowerment Zone folks, right? But there's also the Work Opportunity Tax credit that if you're hiring veterans hard to employ you ex offenders etcetera, you can get two $3000 off you

r federal taxes with the work opportunity Tax Credit. Also through Saint Louis Development Corporation, there's the new market Tax Credits, which can turn into investment, which you know, we we help guide folks. That's usually a fairly sophisticated kind of deal where you know you you're doing some real estate development and have you know, appraisals, environmental assessments, you know, you have all the things that we can guide you through that process also. But there's a myriad of tax credits

that are out there that can to be fair to say, enhance the deal, but they don't make a deal, They're more of an enhancement versus making the deal happen. They will help you bridge the gap. If there's a, you know, 251010 percent, 20% gap in your deal where you need to get some tax credits, some tax credits are sellable and transferable investors will buy those from you, things like that. We have even helped some clients have gotten you know lie tech I should say low income housing tax credits,

tax credits sell those in with to U.S. bank and other banks to get the gap that they're missing. So and when we talk about funding and this is for the whole panel, how do you help people understand in some cases they have to give up part of their company for funding. So, so, so I will be the first to say I don't do a lot in terms of Angel investment and venture capital. I might have participated in maybe 10 over my career and that and even then I was doing probably the lending portion of the dea

l. But what I would say in terms, and I wish Alfred Jackson or somebody who does venture capital was here, but I would say when it comes to giving up ownership in your project or your your business, it's from my perspective, it's a a, a preference. Some of my previous borrowers did not care at all about giving up 90% of their business as long as they could do their science. They said, Oh yeah, I gave up 90% of my stock and I got to do what I wanted to do. Yeah, yeah. I had a lady who she had a v

ery innovative game that all she had to do is give up 15% of her company for $200,000 and she said I cannot do, I cannot give up 15% of my company. She never launched but she it was her choice and I had other guys who just said, hey, you give, I get 50 give away 50% and I get $1,000,000 that I'll do that deal all day long, right. So it's a preference. You have to understand that once you get over that 51% you're working for them and so but you know it's it is a preference you know so, so yeah, w

e we we deal a lot with that. Well I, I, I kind of agree with Kevin. I mean some people look at the benefit, you know if I'm going to get half $1,000,000 and this is going to get me where I need to be. So you know, giving up 20% of it and I'm taking 80, that ain't bad. You know that ain't bad. And then in some cases they able to write, you know, you got that 20% but you don't have, you know, you have no decision making. You have none of this. You know it's a like a silent part and some people do

n't mind, you know, because the project is still and I know a couple of projects I I'm in at liberty to say, but the project is still going on. That person is still, you know, the face of the project is theirs. They make it 80% of the money and the investor took that 20% and getting that 20% and sometimes it's termed, you know sometimes they you work it out and you turned it it it it depends on on on you as the individuals. And in most cases it it depends on what you really want to do. A lot of

people when they get to that point to where they going to give up 20 percent, 10% of their company to to to make this launch. It's usually somebody that has been invested in that company for years and have done everything that they needed to do to to to try to finance it the right way and just need this. But they know they have something that is innovative. They know they have something that really is going to be a money maker. You know it's like hey would I and and know it's going to be you kno

w like this particular company I know within the first year they probably grossed probably $20 million, you know $20 million and they gave up 20% of that. So to give up 20% of $20 million and you steal a millionaire you know it was beneficial for them And so you have to really look at it and say but but I I think sometimes and sometimes we we we tell them you know really think about it you have to tell someone do you really want to do that and and in that case it's a it's a lot of times where it

's something where it's a here and now type of business. It's it's something like I don't know Chia pets or something you know that that is it's popular now but in five years is it going to be sustainable. So then you got to have that sustainable talk what what you're doing what's your business is it sustainable. Can you look back at what what you are inventing, is it just five year product and then is is is done, the wave is gone or is this something people going to be is going to be game chang

ing and so you have to look at that. One of our newest clients created something that we all use and he gave a percentage to get it out the gate and he did it and we use it. Right now it's on everybody. Everybody in this room probably uses it and they have it on a phone and and they use it and oh **** it's, well, it's the casting to cast on. Like if you're watching something on your phone, you want to cast it on your TV and you hit that button. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he created that. And he gave up a

percentage in order to do that. But he created so much more with the percentage that he gave up. He was able to take that, which everybody still use, and he still gets his money. But also what he does is, I'm sorry, it's time to go, all right, all right. But but also but also but also the one thing about it is he created a lot of other stuff without with the percentage that he gave up in the revenue that he made. He invented a lot more stuff. So you know that's that's the. Yeah. But we we get t

hat a lot, especially when you deal with equity investors. So James, I I appreciate you getting jealous of our panel discussion and turn off the lights. So time for one last question and we'll just be brief. Nathania's up here with the time marker, but let's just go with what should people come with when they meet with you to have the best experience? What's going to help them achieve the most when they meet with each of you. So we'll start with Stacy number one. They need to know that they need

to come with a can do attitude, which means when you come in, you know you want to do something. We're not there to do it for you. We're going to do it with you. And you have to have the tenacity and the consistency to stay to it and walk through the process so we can get you where you need to go because it doesn't happen overnight. All right. Kevin, I would just add to what Stacy said is that understanding this that we I don't have any decision making or whether you get the money or not right.

It is do you come with this understanding of we are it is a partnership to get it done and and our desire for my organization is for you to be successful and that everything we are suggesting and I will never tell you what to do. I'm suggesting some things and if you follow those suggestions it will probably get you to where you want to go at some point in time. And Todd you get to close this out. I say come prepared you know come prepared. Everything that you got from Stacey everything that yo

u got from Kevin just bring it over to us but come prepared. I I tell people I say they should be able to look at your your business plan your capability statement and ask you questions. If that's whether you you're sitting in front of a loan officer or whether you sitting into somebody trying to get a buy right or trying to get a contract. They should be able to look at it and know exactly that if I gave this person $100,000 they going to be able to pay me 125 back. And Ty, can I add this And y

ou know, y'all can kick me. The buyers, the bankers, the investors know a hustle versus a business. Yes. Oh, God, yes. Yes. Amen. We legitimize hustle every day. That's what I do. Hello. All right. Just so you know. Well, on that note, you can see her after the program at this table. I'd like to thank our panel and at this time, thank you for having. Thank you for having us. Thank you. OK. Do you want a sitting or standing? Standing. OK, Don't let it hit us. So I don't. Oh, I know. That sounds l

ike. Oh, OK. Thank you. Access to funding, definitely. We know that's a challenge, as mentioned. So we know that you just got a lot of valuable information. And so for our audience online, I just want to give a couple quick, I guess, URLs, because we have representation from people that are local. But MBDA, the Minority Business development Agency, a part of the Department of Commerce is available. They have centers throughout the US So I'm not sure where our online attendees are. But if you go

to mbda.gov, you can learn more about centers that are located close to you. We've heard a lot of reference to SBA, right. And so SBA actually gives us these wonderful small business development centers. So you can look online at sba.gov to get a lot of helpful information. We've heard mention of a business plan. So that's another great resource that SBA can help you out. I think Terrance Wheeler mentioned earlier score. So there's a lot of, Oh my gosh, I've been on score because again, I alread

y told you all how long I've been at the office. So I'm trying to retire and start my own business one day. And so they have a lot of helpful business videos and they also can connect you with the mentor. So these programs again are for you. So on the slide right now, I have AQR code to help us get your feedback. So it's a survey, it's a short survey. Please take the time to give us the information. We will be following up with all of our online and in person attendees to give you links because

we've talked a lot, right. We've been talking, talking, talking. You may not have a pen and a pen and piece of paper, so we're going to follow up with you to give you links. But in the meantime, please make sure that you take the survey. Also want to share a very helpful part of our website because again, we appreciate you coming out in person, but there is help no matter where you are. And we appreciate you sharing all this good news with your family and your friends because we are America's in

novation agency. We are your USPTO, right? So we want to make sure that you're able to connect with us. And so this link will take you to a page that can tell you what's near. We talk a lot about networking, so you can go to your state. You can learn about an inventor or entrepreneur group that's in your area. One more thing, folks, hang on. So we talked about a lot of programs. I know Christina, our trademark expert, mentioned trademark education program. So if you go to uspto.gov/events, you'r

e going to find a lot of helpful upcoming training. It's all free and it's all amazing. And so this is for you. As you can see, we know you're busy because you may be doing your side hustle, right? So our programs are virtual, so you don't have to worry about, you know, stepping out and coming greeting us in person. But we appreciate when we are here to meet you, where you are, if we do have a chance to connect with you in person. But we offer a lot of virtual program. So just want to thank the

wonderful audience both online and in person. Yes, yes. And and my amazing team of USPTO colleagues, there's so many of you that have supported us here on site and back at the office. So I can't say all of your names, but you know who you are. We couldn't do this without you. So we appreciate that. And for those of you that have joined us in person, please join us for networking. We have light fare and we'll be able to connect you with subject matter experts off to the right. So thank you again.