{"id":750,"date":"2017-03-17T00:14:34","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T00:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entrepreneurship.asu.edu\/blog\/?p=750"},"modified":"2017-03-30T21:38:56","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T21:38:56","slug":"inspiration-and-inclusion-scenes-from-the-kauffman-inclusion-workshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entrepreneurship.asu.edu\/blog\/2017\/03\/17\/inspiration-and-inclusion-scenes-from-the-kauffman-inclusion-workshop\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspiration and Inclusion: Scenes from the Kauffman Inclusion Workshop"},"content":{"rendered":"Guest Contribution By:\u00a0Cristina Sabbatini\r\n\r\nOn February 16th, I was invited as a female business owner to Design Thinking: Community Experts and Business Owners<\/a>. The event, hosted by ASU\u2019s Entrepreneurship + Innovation in response to securing a highly-competitive $250k grant<\/a>, was created specifically to generate insights on how entrepreneurial programming could better serve women and minorities.\r\n\r\nIf you\u2019re still skeptical on the value of diversity and gender parity, consider strictly the economic case. If we had closed the gender entrepreneurship gap in Arizona in 2015 alone, we would have added $105.2 billion to our GSP<\/a>.\r\n\r\nIf we fully closed the gender gap around the world by 2025, we could add $28 trillion to the global economy.<\/a>\r\n\r\n
\"Cristina_blog\"<\/a>

Cristina Sabbatini at February’s Design Thinking for Inclusion Workshop at SkySong’s 1951<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s to say that the interest in diversity is not merely a social one \u2014\u00a0it has tremendous economic implications.\r\n\r\nMY EXPERIENCE\r\n\r\nLike most of the entrepreneur participants that day, I received the request from a friend of a friend. I believed I would be talking to a small group of people about my entrepreneurial journey, pain points, and some ideas for how we could fix programming to bring in more women. What I didn\u2019t anticipate and was thrilled to discover was the sheer power and magnitude of this event.\r\n\r\nNot only did ASU successfully pull leaders from all of the most well-known and established entrepreneurial organizations here in the valley, but they also invited and secured an amazing mix of underrepresented entrepreneurs. One business owner had launched a mobile massage business, another had created a chocolate shop. One business owner had established a school that taught financial literacy and how to recover from and repair bad credit, and one especially inspiring entrepreneur helped women from a Native American tribe escape abuse that most of us are entirely unaware of. It was overwhelming.\r\n\r\nThroughout the morning I had a chance to speak with representatives from ASU Venture Devils<\/strong>, The Maricopa Small Business Development Center<\/strong>, Local First Arizona<\/strong>, and Scottsdale Public Library<\/strong>. They asked me questions like:\r\n