THE FORTHCOMING Twende Summit at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center is 'designed to connect Black and Brown founders with the networks, knowledge, and resources to help them grow beyond the first three years of their startup," says the EC.

The unprecedented EC event is Friday, April 12, at EC headquarters, downtown. Registration info is here.

"Twende" means "let's go!" in the Kiswahili language indigenous to much of Africa.

Topics for April 12 include, among other things: crowd-funding, loans and grants for minority-owned businesses, bootstrapping, pitching, angel investing, policy solutions to advance equity and business growth.

Speakers confirmed for the event include, as of March 18 :

• Jurnell Cockhren, Founder at Civic Hacker
• Andrew Goldner, Co-Founder at GrowthX
• Leshane Greenhill, Founder at SalesCocktail
• Khrys Hatch, Capital Formation Research Coordinator at Launch Tennessee
• Danielle O'Rourke, Corporate Development at Caregiver
• Shaun Randolph, Capital Program Manager at Launch Tennessee
• Clint Smith, Co-Founder of EMMA
• Jimmie Strong, Associate, Baker Donelson
• Fallon Wilson PhD, CEO and Co-Founder of Black in Tech Nashville; Director of Research for Black Tech Mecca.

The prior evening, on April 11, the EC will host a smaller gathering for investors and selected startups. Requests for further information about that sidebar event are to be directed to " Brynn dot Plummer at EC dot com".

Plummer told Venture Nashville that the ad hoc group planning the events of April 11-12 includes Aireka Harvell, founder and CEO of Nodat Place; Shani Dowell, founder of Possip Inc.; and, Kipkosgei Magut, co-founder, Zyllion.

Plummer confirmed that the EC also has a standing committee on Diversity & Inclusion, which is not directly involved in planning the Summit.

Preliminary VNC research indicates the D&I Committee includes the following people.

Ex officio: EC CEO Michael Brody-Waite and EC VP Community and Inclusion Brynn Plummer, with plus: