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entrepreneurship

Entrepreneur’s Eviction Leads To Community Model For The World

March 5, 2025 Ilana Preuss, Next City. , , , , ,
Kiyomi Rollins can smell the coffee even before she walks through the door at The Ke’nekt Cooperative in Atlanta’s Westview neighborhood. Sunshine fills the space with energy; every seat is full. She smiles at the neighborhood aunties sitting next to the entrepreneurs from Atlanta University Center and the community resident teaching a small group about social media content creation for neighborhood startups. She watches as a middle-schooler from down the street fundraises for his school trip and each person around the table helps out however they can.

Sewing Network Shows How Entrepreneurs Can Thrive In Place

January 27, 2025 Ilana Preuss, Next City. , , , ,
Despite no formal sewing training and few successful entrepreneurship examples in her neighborhood, Pittsburgh-based entrepreneur Nisha Blackwell has spent the last 10 years using her love of sewing to show her community that successful entrepreneurship is possible. Her boutique bowtie company Knotzland, upcycling rescued textiles and materials into high-quality bows through a distributed production model, shows how small-scale manufacturing can bring new life to struggling neighborhoods.

Under-Resourced Neighborhoods Can Be Incubators For Future Entrepreneurs

July 2, 2024 Walter Mendenhall, Next City. , , , , , ,
In 2016, I walked into a school’s career day on the west side of Chicago and met a great young man. This honor roll student played basketball and was respected by his peers. But despite these wonderful qualities, he sold drugs to pay for the things he desired. He was one of thousands of young Black men in Chicago who have the ambition, intelligence and leadership acumen to become successful, legitimate entrepreneurs but have no idea how to find that path, let alone follow it. There are tens of thousands more like him in cities across the country. Some put their entrepreneurial drive and leadership skills to destructive, and illegal, use.