I attended the 9th Annual Women in Business conference on April 2 at Montgomery County Conference Center. The conference featured two outstanding inspirational speakers — Debra Poneman, Founder of Yes to Success, Inc. and Emily Greene, Founder of VIVA Creative. Debra is a speaker, seminar leader and author. She underlined the importance of believing in your dreams and referenced “the law of attraction” — the idea that your dominant thoughts manifest your outcomes.
Emily Greene, an entrepreneur who started a communications business, VIVA Creative in 2001, spoke about the characteristics of truly effective networking. She emphasized that networking is not prospecting. Many people attend networking events with their business cards handy, seeking to get clients or other desirables. Emily highlighted the importance of being ready to give. People who give and connect others are among the most successful networkers.
Rockville Economic Development, Inc. administers the StartRight! Business Plan Competition which awards prizes to the best business plans developed by women entrepreneurs. Several women who had submitted outstanding business plans were honored and awarded prizes. And the winners were:
Lisa Chan, ZaraCom Technologies, Inc., First Prize Winner ($10,000 and 9 month virtual office solution from Intelligent Office) ZaraCom has developed a patent-pending artificial intelligence-based technology that identifies the bottlenecks in wireless carriers. It then offers instant solutions to resolve the bottlenecks. This year the company signed contracts with China Mobile.
Sharon Flank, Ph.D., InfraTrac , Second Prize Winner, ($5,000 and 6 month virtual office solution from Intelligent Office) InfraTrac is a venture-backed start-up company established in 2006 that uses patent-pending near-infrared spectroscopy to detect counterfeits.
Jessica Feltz, The Turning Point – A Community Acupuncture Center, Third Prize (tie), ($2,500 and 3 month virtual office solution from Intelligent Office) The Turning Point offers high-quality alternative healthcare at an affordable price.
Colleen Nye and Dr. Loleta M. Robinson, Syan Biosciences, Third Prize (tie), ($2,500 and 3 month virtual office solution from Intelligent Office) Colleen Nye and Dr. Loleta Robinson are licensing and bringing to market “lab-on-a-chip” technology that will enable performing rapid, accurate and inexpensive diagnostic analysis in a non-laboratory setting.
