Savvy Entrepreneur Series - Protecting Intellectual Property on Limited Budgets - Oct. 11

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1 Savvy Entrepreneur Series - Protecting Intellectual Property on Limited Budgets - Oct. 11 The Great Lakes Chapter of the MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF), UM Dearbron, and Great Lakes Entrepreneur Quest (GLEQ) are pleased to unveil the Savvy Entrepreneur Series. Co-produced with, and hosted by, a number of the region s leading innovation accelerators and research institutions, the series provides early to mid-stage technology entrepreneurs with guidance on key topics that all start ups must navigate to realize success. Includes great networking opportunities across Dearborn, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Flint, Detroit, Houghton, Traverse City, Midland, and more sites in the future. Address information is below. Join us on October 11, 2010 at 5:00 p.m. at one of the live video sites with local and statewide networking followed by a panel discussion of intellectual property. You re heading a technology company and you realize that your product has some great potential. You suddenly realize that you don t have anything in place to protect your idea and your intellectual property. A little bit of research uncovers some options, some recommend copyrighting, nondisclosure agreements, others patenting and still other suggest varieties of licensing agreements. They all involve a fair amount of expense. How do you protect your precious IP without bankrupting your fledgling enterprise? You ll learn key Strategic Intellectual Property Management Best Practices, including how to navigate through the dreaded NDA with customers and partners. Before allocating a significant portion of your product or business development budget to this, you ask yourself, Are there some inexpensive ways of protecting your intellectual property? Learn why and how to protect one of your businesses most valuable assets affordably from local leading entrepreneurs and specialists. Bring your questions and thorniest challenges to this program to advance your technology entrepreneurship skill set. A panel of successful entrepreneurs, investors and subject matter experts will share best practices and experiences dealing with one of the biggest challenges and biggest critical success factor to launch or grow your company. The forum will include insights from the panelists followed by a moderated question and answer session to address your specific startup commercialization or growth questions. We will also have a panel of Active Early Stage Investor and Successful Entrepreneur to help answer your hard questions to support your journey. We will also showcase a Michigan entrepreneur on their growth journey. 5PM Start On Site Registration and Local Site Networking (save money by registering online )

2 5:15PM Optional Statewide Speed Introduction. Opportunity for you to meet and share your business idea in seconds and request or offer assistance. 6PM to 8PM Live Web Video Program Welcome and Site Introductions Key Note Speaker Question and Answer with Specialist Panel Successful Entrepreneur, Leading Patent Attorney, and Early Stage Investor on Protecting Your Intellectual Property Michigan Tech News Sharing Successes and What s Working for Entrepreneurs 8PM to 8:30PM Additional Local Site Networking Our goal is to continually share best practices, best teams, best entrepreneurs, and frequent critical mass networking on key topics that helps high growth entrepreneurs and innovators thrive and accelerate success. We want to help connect many more people interested in the new technology space every month, so we can all help each other FASTER Please share this broadly and people can add their name to the monthly announcements at: Link to event registration: 8&eventId=41964 Students are free with pre-registration and there are special early registration and membership options across the state ($30 or less depending on your location and membership affiliation). $40 for walk in registration. And special full series pricing. This is a great value for sharing best practices on your business concept and getting the best connections across the state. Pick one of 6 sites around Michigan to attend.

3 At 5:15PM there will be a multi-site speed introduction opportunity. Each participant will be able to introduce your business idea and help needed in 60 seconds or less, then there will be a little Q&A. We will also be sharing the attendee contact info, so you can have follow up discussions. Please arrive around 5PM to help get pointed at this opportunity at each site. Put these Savvy Entrepreneur Series dates on your calendar also (5pm to 8:30pm): October 11, 2011 Tuesday Intellectual Property: How to protect your precious IP without bankrupting your fledgling enterprise and how to navigate the dreaded NDA with prospective customers and partners. November 8, 2011 Tuesday Building Great Team: A winning organization is more than the sum of its parts, and a losing one far less. How to recruit, retain, incentivize and inspire employees, advisors, board members and key leaders. January 31, 2012 Tuesday ACE 2012: 12th gathering of over 500 active and new entrepreneurs to celebrate and connect February 21, 2012 Tuesday Angel Investors: What are they looking for, how are they different from venture capitalists and why use them? How do they think about valuation? April 10, 2012 Tuesday Cash Flow: What is it and how can you maximize it and best practices on how to compensate the executive team to sustain it. Even if you have no cash yet, this is a top priority to understand early and manage well. May 8, 2012 Tuesday Developing a Milestone Based Capital Raising Plan: Learn how to develop a milestone based realistic fundraising plan that is critical to success for technology-based high growth companies. June 5, 2012 Tuesday All Day Program GLEQ $100K Business Plan Competition Finals and MITEF-MIVCA Entrepreneur- Investor Golf Scramble

4 Corporate Gold Sponsor: A leading innovation patent attorney firm for Great Lakes region startups and innovative growth companies. litigation. Corporate Gold Sponsor: Business, corporate and venture law firm including finance transactions and commercial Event In Kind Sponsor: ConveneWeb is provider of leading full thin client web video conference and collaboration software that will be hosting the online interactive session. The latest statewide New Technology Updates and host of What s Working News and Successes at Savvy Entrepreneur Series. Learn more at Collaboration Sites Around the Site and Region: Michigan Tech and Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance Advanced Technology Development Complex, Michigan Tech Campus, 1402 Sharon Avenue, Houghton, MI Mid-Michigan Innovation Center and SVSU 4520 E. Ashman Rd., Midland, MI MITEF and University of Michigan Center for Entrepreneurship GLEQ, Spark, and NEF Menlo Innovations, Third Floor, 410 N 4th Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48104

5 Kettering University - TechWorks Innovation Center building at 1300 Bluff Street, Flint MI, University Michigan Dearborn and Henry Ford Community College City of Dearborn 141 Fairlane Center South, University of Michigan-Dearborn College of Business Hubbard Drive, Dearborn, MI GVSU Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Grand Rapids Atomic Object, 941 Wealthy St SE, Grand Rapids, MI (new temporary location will be announced shortly) Future Collaboration Sites in Progress. We are looking for successful serial entrepreneurs, investors or mentors to help support the following locations. Please contact info@mitgreatlakes.org if you are interested in helping support this statewide and regional collaboration a few hours per month: Hillsdale County Economic Development MITEF - GELQ Jackson County Economic Development MITEF - GLEQ Lenawee County Economic Development MITEF - GLEQ LEAP, MSU, and City of East Lansing University of Windsor-Windsor Traverse City Detroit Toronto Toledo Cadillac-MMIC Marlette-MMIC Clare-MMIC Saginaw-SVSU-MMIC Oakland/Macomb County Additional Upper Peninsula Locations