Causes: Business & Industry

Mission: The idea village is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a mission to identify, support and retain entrepreneurial talent in new orleans.

Programs: Core programseach year, the idea village's entrepreneur season installs rhythms and rituals that strategically and efficiently engage a global network to support high-growth entrepreneurs, educate the larger entrepreneurial community, and promote new orleans as an entrepreneurial hub. The season culminates each march with new orleans entrepreneur week, the premier entrepreneurship showcase event in new orleans. Last year, the 2014 entrepreneur season (from july 2013 to march 2014), engaged over 5,000 people through more than 138 innovative events that resulted from 26 partner organizations that engaged throughout the season and continued schedule oleveraged the noew platform to showcase 70 local ventures with innovative solutions in technology, water, education, food, arts, and tourism. These programs include:ideax: an intensive, 11-week, startup-focused program leveraging successful entrepreneurs as mentors for a cohort of up to 15 early-stage, new orleans-based ventures. Over 160 entrepreneurs applied for the 2014 program and the idea village selected a portfolio of 13 companies poised for growth to participate. 60 percent of the class was revenue generating upon selection and 80 percent tech-based. With innovative ideas in a number of industries, including digital media, education, health care, finance, and retail, the 2014 class was a true reflection of the evolution and growth of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Ideasessions: focused strategy sessions led by seasoned entrepreneurs and business experts. The goal is for participating entrepreneurs to walk away with actionable next steps that they can immediately implement. During the 2014 season, the idea village provided ideasessions to 121 ventures. Capitalx: an invitation-only program that develops, refines, and strengthens new orleans entrepreneurs' investor pitches for a variety of innovative capital access opportunities for equity capital (coulter ideapitch; demo day @ noew); and grants (the big idea). Zlien won the 2014 coulter ideapitch (a vc investment pitch that was created in partnership with jim coulter, founding partner of tpg), receiving a customized, all-expense-paid trip to california to meet with investors. Demo day @ noew featured six startups representing new approaches to established local industries: athletic performance testing, snap real estate photography, mobilequbes, maritant, education everytime and your nutrition delivered. Demo day @ noew was developed in direct response to new orleans' burgeoning angel community to serve as a platofrm that will contribute to the continued momentum of local angels and emerging businesses. During the 2014 big idea (a crowd sourced funding event), cajun fire brewing company won $54,300 in the big idea, presented by iberiabank. The other 12 new ventures that split the remaining $29,000 included: 4d supplements, athletic performance testing, bats on tees, bit bike, culture connect, funddat, i see change, krewe du optic, locally preserved, makerstate, threadix and where y'art. Ideacorps: the nationally-recognized experiential learning program that engages mba students to provide direct strategic consulting to select high-growth new orleans entrepreneurs during noew. Mbas from six leading national universities including university of california haas school of business, university of chicago booth school of business, cornell university's johnson graduate school of management, loyola university new orleans, university of pennsylvania's wharton school, and tulane university's a. B. Freeman school of business participated in the ideacorps program during noew 2014. Ideainstitute: a weekly series of workshops, panels, keynotes, and networking events covering a gamut of topics relevant to entrepreneurs, from business fundamentals to today's hot issues, delivered by industry experts. The 2014 season featured 24 unique sessions on topics critical to startups.

special projectseach entrepreneur season, the idea village executes select special projects. Special projects allow the organization to test new programs and partnerships before fully integrating them into the season. Special projects during the 2014 entrepreneur season included:water challenge: a targeted program in partnership with the greater new orleans foundation that identifies and supports entrepreneurial solutions that apply innovative approaches to how we live with water in southeast louisiana. Continued schedule owater challenge (continued): after completing an intensive educational series with the idea village, 4 members were invited into a 3-month accelerator with the idea village entrepreneurs-in-residence in preparation for a $50,000 pitch during new orleans entrepreneur week, which ora estuaries won. New orleans food challenge: a 9-week accelerator focused on supporting entrepreneurial activity in the food and beverage industry. Locally preserved, drinkology, and sugah were named the winners and each received a $2,500 grant. Destination hackathon: a 2-day event designed to inspire the creation of frameworks for mobile applications that will ultimately benefit the new orleans tourism industry. Hearhere! Was name the winner and received a $1,000 grant. 3d printed design contest: presented by the new olreans museum of art (noma) to encourage new forms of production of artwork made possible by 21st century methods of computer-assisted digital fabrication. There were a total of 17 submissions, which were displayed at noma. Shea trahan won. Rosen technology fellowship: business development and mentorship programs aimed at lsu-based entrepreneurs. Applied biopolymers, electrochemical materials, and evisive were each awarded $1,250 grants. Education challenge: an initiative in partnership with 4. 0 schools that supports startups tackling critical problems within education. Select entrepreneurs are invited into the 4. 0 accelerator program and then mentored by idea village entrepreneurs-in-residence as they prepare for the final pitch during new orleans entrepreneur week. Cultureconnect won the 2014 pitch. Youth entrepreneurship day: 3 synergistic programs powered by google for education. All programs fouces on empowering students to do incredible things through education and technology. Incubating the incubators - latvia: at the request of the u. S. Embassy, the idea village launched a pilot ecosystem mentorship initiative with latvia. The idea village developed a curriculum on igniting an entrepreneurial movement and delivered it to the latvians via google hangout. The idea village's annual entrepreneur season culminates in new orleans entrepreneur week (noew). Noew has become the premier showcase event for the new orleans entrepreneurial ecosystem. Noew 2014 was ten times the size of the inaugural year with 3,000 of the nation's most innovative business leaders, financiers, entrepreneurs, and students engaged to support local entrepreneurs through 64 events. 92% of noew 2014 attendees thought the quality of the sessions was excellent or good 96% of noew 2014 attendees are planning on attending noew 2015.