Getting Buzzed about Business

In meeting the goal of the Apps Entrepreneurs Challenge, the Foundation for Entrepreneurial Research and Development (FERAD), a 501(c)3 nonprofit agency devoted to productive and transformative social change through entrepreneurship, has created multiple online entrepreneurial resource communities as a no-cost public service privately sustained through underwriters of non-commercial, educational content. These communities include the Business Utility Zone Gateway (www.buzgate.org), myExpertNet (www.myexpertnet.org), the Business Utility Zone for Individuals with Disabilities (www.buzvr.org), and just launched the Veteran's Virtual Business Accelerator (www.vetbizgo.org). As leading experts in entrepreneurial education and development, FERAD founders developed these communities so that individuals could navigate Federal government business assistance programs, as well as nonprofit business assistance programs by multiple search criteria. This includes the formal program names and acronyms as well as the type of business assistance offered, such as government contracting, counseling, import/export and funding. Presently, these respective FERAD communities catalogue over 25,000 government and nonprofit programs through an interactive database that facilitates updating, adding, contacting, forwarding and social media posts of any and all program listings. This includes SBA.gov, SBIR.gov, data.gov and green.sba.gov data sets as well as other federal and state government agencies and resources. Collectively, there are 16 different types of services, 6 different types of industry categories, an alphabetical listing and key word search features to support navigation. Also useful from the perspective of effectively reaching target constituents, respective communities are designed to appeal to all individuals, as well as niche groups such as veterans, women, minorities and individuals with disabilities. As a family of entrepreneurial communities, the applications are innovative, creative and interesting, as well as functional, well-designed and simple to use. As an "all-go" and "no-show" technical implementation strategy, all constituents may access any resource community through the Internet with connectivity speeds as slow as dial-up, as well as hand-held devices. Through multiple public/private collaboration and outreach efforts, access and content is also promoted and shared through other venues including IBM and the World Bank's SMEToolKit.org portal. In summary, FERAD has created a virtual community to promote awareness, access and use of government and nonprofit business assistance programs in a manner where "all participants add value and all receive value" to the extent that they choose to participate as a no-cost public service.