As the Chamber looks to encourage and support an entrepreneurial ecosystem a trip was made to experience Big Omaha by Chamber staff May 18-20. Big Omaha is a relatively young event created only three years ago but in that short time the sold out event brings together more than 600 people from over 20 states and 3 countries and a long waiting list of attendee hopefuls. The fast-paced, high energy event features a line-up of nearly 20 keynote speakers including experienced entrepreneurs, writers and developers, entrepreneurial support organizations and more.
Big Omaha’s tagline: “The nation’s most ambitious conference on innovation and entrepreneurship.” The intent is to provide inspiration, energy, drive and motivation to attendees that can return home and launch the idea(s) they have only been thinking of.
Memorable Quotes:
- “Entrepreneurship is happening all over, but it's not surfaced and made known like the Valley. We need to bring it to the surface in places like Omaha. It’s less obvious here and needs to be drawn out. That is our hope,” Erich Broksas, Startup American Partnership.
- “For the first time ever your ears matter more than your mouth,” Gary Vaynerchuk, VaynerMedia.
- “The answer is always no — 100 percent of the time — if you don’t ask,” Shervin Pishevar, Social Gaming Network.
- "This is the time to fix the broken immigration system in our country because you can’t talk about entrepreneurship and innovation without acknowledging the very real point that from 1995-2005, well over 25 percent of all of the startups in the United States were founded by immigrant entrepreneurs," Aneesh Chopra, United States CTO.
The conference is produced by Silicon Prairie News. Silicon Prairie News exists to highlight and support the burgeoning entrepreneurial ecosystem on the Silicon Prairie. With the goal of connecting, educating and inspiring individuals, Silicon Prairie News produces regular events, such as Big Omaha and has a hand in planning many more events throughout the year. Learn more at SiliconPrairieNews.com/about
