How Businesses Can Help Fight Poverty

The third annual Alleviating Poverty Through Entrepreneurship Summit kicks off April 15 at The Ohio State University.

The event −which will be held in Mershon Auditorium at The Wexner Center for the Arts from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.− helps students, professionals, and community members connect with each other and learn about market-based approaches for addressing poverty.

“We want people to realize that poverty alleviation is not achieved by merely donating money, food, and supplies, but is instead created through carefully planned, researched, and implemented solutions,” says David Sherry, a member of the Business Builders Club, which worked with OSU’s chapter of Net Impact to coordinate the summit.

A dozen people will be speaking at the event, including keynote speaker Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva, which claims to be the world’s first peer-to-peer microlending platform.

Other speakers include Gaby Blocher, director of research for Nuru International; Sonya Perez-Lauterbach,director of Young Ambassadors for Opportunity; and Tanisha Robinson, CEO of Fudha.

“When we were selecting speakers, we made an effort to find people that are doing amazing work locally, nationally, and globally,” Sherry says. “Also, we believe that there’s no one sector that’s responsible for alleviating poverty in the world; everyone needs to work together.  To highlight this fact, we sought out people from a variety of fields such as health care, education, energy, science, and technology.”

The summit is free and open to the public. Lunch is included for attendees who have registered by April 11.

As of Monday, 692 people had registered for the summit, but organizers are hoping for 1,000 attendees.

“We’d like this to be big,” Sherry says.

To register for the event, click here.

From 5 to 7:30 p.m., summit attendees can browse The Innovation Marketplace, which will be housed at the Gateway Film Center at 1550 N. High St.

The Innovation Marketplace will be a “dynamic career fair” where attendees can get plugged into internship, research, volunteer, and study abroad opportunities or purchase a socially conscious product, Sherry says.

“Those who attend are encouraged to bring resumes to give to attending companies and organizations,” he adds.

To learn more about the Alleviating Poverty Through Entrepreneurship Summit, visit Fisher.osu.edu/centers/entrepreneurship/alleviating-poverty-summit.