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The Valley Ventures Entrepreneur Café competition will be an evening highlighting the resources and innovations advancing entrepreneurism in the southern West Virginia.  Vision Shared, the original launcher of this competition four years ago is joining BB&T, a faithful supporter of these competitions to provide $1,000 in seed funding for the winner of the January 19th entrepreneur competition at The Hive in Beckley.   Dinner is also being sponsored for crowd-funders, who will decide which business idea deserves their support.

Valley Ventures is looking for innovators who are ready to take their ideas into operation, or expand their existing business or social enterprise in some way. The application to compete for the Valley Ventures Café is simple and can be accessed at www.gvecafe.com.   The chosen contestants will share their passion and idea with a five minute pitch presentation.  Attendees and crowd-funders will select the winner of the seed funding through a point system ballot.  A question and answer period helps to clarify points to determine the entrepreneur to be awarded a combination of seed funding and crowd funding.

The great entrepreneur Henry Ford said, “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself”   By advancing entrepreneurism in the region through shared goals of partners and sponsors of Valley Ventures Entrepreneur Café, a successful network of support for entrepreneurism is gaining ground.  Valley Ventures partners are New River Gorge Regional Development Authority, New River Community and Technical College, Region 1 Regional Development Board, and Greenbrier Valley Economic Development to produce these events.  Each café attendee will be able to donate $10 to crowd-funding to invest in our economy and the ideas of an aspiring innovator.  Crowd-funders will receive a ballot to determine the most deserving entrepreneur while enjoying a delicious supper courtesy of Vision Shared.  The deadline to apply is December 20, 2015.  Go to www.gvecafe for more information and to apply.  For more information, please call 304-667-7027.

The evening of January 19th offers an evening of hope for the future, as attendees will be welcomed to the Beckley Hive – Open House (before the entrepreneur café) to see demonstrations of new technology, check out the great flex office spaces and resources that are available for start-ups.

Supporters of the competition include the Chambers of Beckley-Raleigh, Greater Bluefield, Greater Greenbrier, Fayette, Mercer-Princeton, Summersville, Richwood, and Pocahontas, as well as Generation West Virginia.