Mattel, eBay, Google Fiber and other corporate giants are sponsoring the upcoming Latinitas Startup Chica Conference, an event to encourage 9- to 14-year-old girls to become entrepreneurs and leaders.
At the conference on Nov. 13 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., young entrepreneurs will develop a business idea and be mentored and judged by panels of local business leaders. The event will be held at Geekdom, a coworking space at 110 E Houston St.
Speakers at the event include keynote Salena Guipzot, founder of the Boardroom Project; Daniela Madrigal, founder and artist at Fruity Poms; business coach Jordan Maney; Melanie Mendez-Gonzales, entrepreneur and founder of Que Means What; and Samantha Nejera, president and CEO of HeartFire Media.
Sponsors include Geekdom and VIA Metropolitan Transit, which will assist in transporting attendees to and from the event.
Latinitas, the Austin-based nonprofit that organizes the annual conference – held for the first time this year in San Antonio – operates with a mission to empower girls to become business leaders, while increasing the representation of women of color across all creative economies.
According to Laura Donnelly, the organization’s CEO, Latinitas was awarded $100,000 from the eBay Foundation’s Global Give grant in October to expand its virtual growth nationally and internationally. Latinitas will spend the money across three or four conferences, she said, and the organization plans to host a future Startup Chica conference in Spanish.
The grants serve to meet the needs of underrepresented entrepreneur communities, including but not limited to Black, indigenous, refugees, veterans, women and LGBTQ individuals, said Donnelly.
Donnelly said moving the conference to San Antonio this year was a natural development.
“San Antonio is filled with natural leadership entrepreneurs who developed their own economy to traverse nontraditional pathways to financing,” she said. “They want to care about something – and have sustainable goals as sort of the template.”
Emily Bobadilla, Latinas’ program leader, is based out of San Antonio, as is the organization’s development coordinator, Ashley Guerra.
“San Antonio is really our sister city and it has this majority Latino community, and there are so many women and girls really capable of learning and becoming,” said Liliana Cortez, program director for Latinitas.