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April 29, 2018 | Tom Ballard

First half of May is peppered with entrepreneurial events across Tennessee

By Tom Ballard, Chief Alliance Officer, PYA

If you are an entrepreneur anywhere in Tennessee, there are some exciting activities occurring, particularly during the first half of the month of May.

First up is the return of Basecamp in Chattanooga. Scheduled for the first Tuesday of every month, that means the inaugural event is tomorrow (May 1) at Miller Plaza, 850 Market Street. It includes a six-hour co-working opportunity, complimentary breakfast, a noontime presentation titled “Beyond Cryptocurrency: A Quick Intro to the Blockchain,” and one other activity before a 5:30 p.m. happy hour at The Edney Innovation Center. Click here for more details.

Beginning Thursday, May 3 and continuing through Saturday, May 5, Northeast Tennessee is hosting its inaugural “Small Business Festival” with events scheduled in the two cities that are named Bristol as well as Johnson City and Kingsport. At last count, there were nearly three dozen workshops planned. Click here for the schedule.

The next week – May 7 – finds the “Summer of Acceleration” starting in Memphis. There are four different programs that are part of the 100-day initiative. They include the Epicenter Logistics Accelerator, Launch Delta Home Services Accelerator, ZeroTo510 Medical Device Accelerator, and AgLaunch.

On May 8, the inaugural “The Sky City Initiative” meet-up occurs at Barley’s Taproom in Downtown Maryville. It’s an effort led by a group of Blount Countians to support more entrepreneurship in the community. Free pizza, libations, and a short program start at 6 p.m. Click here to read our earlier teknovation.biz article on the initiative that includes a registration link.

Also on May 8 is the first of two stops that week in the Volunteer State for Steve Case and J.D. Vance. The stops are part of the “Rise of the Rest Road Tour” described in this recent teknovation.biz article. Memphis is first up on May 8 followed by Chattanooga on May 10. Eight start-ups in each location will compete for $100,000. It’s too late to apply to be considered, but it’s not too late to register to attend. The Memphis registration link is here, Chattanooga is here.

The week of May 14 finds two activities, both in Music City.

  • The second annual “Nashville Entrepreneur Week” is scheduled for May 15 – 18. The kick-off party is set to run from 6 to 8 p.m. May 15 at the WeWork One Nashville Place location, 150 Fourth Avenue North. Click here to register. Also, the organizers said the complete schedule will be announced this week. We’ll post it when available.
  • On May 16, the second “Bunker Labs Nashville Muster” will be held from 3 to 8:15 p.m. at WeWork’s East Nashville location, 901 Woodland Street. Click here to read our biz article describing the event in greater detail that also includes a registration link.

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