INNOVATION IN AGRICULTURE AND ENERGY OPPORTUNITY ZONE SUMMIT
Prepare for the IAEOZ Summit 2024 Africa in Cape Town, South Africa! Join us for five days of engaging sessions focusing on Agriculture and Energy sectors. Registration is open!
Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) to forge partnerships with African innovators, businesses, and governmental agencies.
Ignite a new era of transcontinental collaboration, driving impactful growth and sustainable development on both continents.
Pinnacle conference for African Diaspora Energy and U.S. Agriculture businesses, broadening connections within African business communities.
Catalyst, accelerating connections, alliances, capital investment, and import-export initiatives, particularly focusing on Agriculture and Energy sectors.
Opening doors for innovators on both sides of the Atlantic to tap into U.S. Government contracts while facilitating partnerships and participation in African projects for U.S. Minority companies.
The IAEOZ Summits are designed to foster solutions to systemic barriers and challenges that impact rural communities, by catalyzing investment in Smart Farming and cutting-edge technologies in food production and food security, and engaging with HBCUs, Land Grant Colleges, Minority Serving Institutions, Small Businesses, and Corporate and Federal Agency partners.
World-class speakers and panelists at the IAEOZ Summits that we held in 2020 and 2021 focused on empowering Black and Brown farmers, and presented on topics covering agricultural literacy, the role of satellites, drones and the Internet of Things in precision farming, Government research grants and contracts, Private-Public Partnership investment and rural community revitalization, job creation and workforce development.
At the 2024 IAEOZ Summit, leaders in business, commerce, technology, and philanthropy will discuss the changing role of farming in America and Africa – and how HBCUs and Land Grant colleges located in Opportunity Zones can serve as anchor institutions to reinvent agribusiness education, innovation, commercialization, land preservation, restoration, and a return to wealth creation within the Minority agriculture community.
We will provide actionable information on accessing funds and grants generated by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and on expanded Government contracting opportunities for MBEs driven by the landmark Executive Orders 13985 and 14008. Speakers will present case-studies of sustainability and carbon sequestration initiatives in farming, and examples of successful Minority-owned agribusiness enterprises.
IAEOZ Summit Partners
The Federal Procurement Center – under the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) – has a critical mission to support the 9.7 Million Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) throughout the Nation in gaining access to and succeeding in performing Government contracts. The FPC helps MBEs build scale and capacity, increase revenues, create and retain jobs, and expand regionally, nationally and internationally.
The MBDA is the only Federal agency solely dedicated to the growth and global competitiveness of MBEs. After 52 years in operation, President Biden signed the Minority Business Development Act of 2021, expanding and making permanent MBDA as the U.S.’s newest federal agency – with Donald R. Cravins, Jr. confirmed as the first Under Secretary of Commerce for Minority Business Development.
IAEOZ Summit 2024 Global Partners
IAEOZ Summit 2023 Sponsors
