Pikeville is a city in and the county seat of Pike County, Kentucky, United States. During the 2020 U.S. Census, the population within Pikeville's city limits was 7,754. In Kentucky's current city classification system, Pikeville is a home rule-class city, a category that includes all of the state's more than 400 cities except for the two largest, Louisville and Lexington.

The Bowling Green Konexon's Community Portal is here to help entrepreneurs in Bowling Green and the surrounding area, find the resources and information they need to assist them in growing their businesses.  

The Louisville Konexon's Community Portal is maintained by the Sheltowee Business Network. On this Community Portal you will find the resources that entrepreneurs need for growing their businesses.  If you have resources or information that you think could be helpful to the Louisville entrepreneurial ecosystem, please feel to reach out to us.  We hope that you find this portal to be helpful and a resource that you come back to.  

The Russell Technology Business Incubator (RTBI) is the first business incubator for black entrepreneurs in West Louisville.   The incubator is under the umbrella of AMPED, the Academy of Music Production Education and Development, which is a free music program for kids in Louisville. The founder, Dave Christopher, said the idea for the business incubator came about in 2020 as black-owned businesses were struggling in the COVID-19 pandemic significantly more than their counterparts.

Mr. Christopher, an entrepreneur himself, has experienced challenges with having access to resources and programs that are equipped to assist and understand black entrepreneurs’ unique struggles.

Through RTBI, black business owners now have access to services and resources to help them get started, research their goals, create generational wealth, create jobs, give back to the community, and to continue to grow for years to come.

The incubator is a year-long program that challenges entrepreneurs to go on a learning journey that will expand their knowledge, increase confidence, and grow their businesses.  The program is specifically designed to reduce failure for black entrepreneurs by keeping their unique challenges in mind.  The program offers courses in business planning, business accounting, marketing, capital strategies, technology, business communication, and life balance.  In addition, each entrepreneur participating in the program is assigned a professional business coach for support and guidance on handling their business’ specific challenges.  RTBI gives so many resources that are designed to reduce the barriers that black-owned business experience and increases the success rate in the black communities of Louisville.

The incubator received a grant $500,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to get started and since has received more than $3 million in funding from other donations. Mr. Christopher and his staff, donors, and supporters are committed to reducing the racial wealth gap across the nation.  It is projected that RTBI to become a national model within three to five years.

The Metals Innovation Initiative was born out of an idea, an idea that doesn’t have a ready-made playbook: How can we create an industry-led organization that collaborates with governmental, educational, and other stakeholders to solve the most pressing challenges and capture opportunities that our organizations cannot easily address on their own? There are numerous examples of collaboration between industry and education, government and industry, and government and education. MI2’s concept is to bring those collaborations under one roof to form an ecosystem, guide it, and empower it to drive innovation and shape the future of the metal industry.
 

The Startup Investor is an online community individuals interested in investing in Startups.  Startups are an asset class that are not understood by many investors.  The Startup Investor is starting with a newsletter and will be moving towards a quarterly published magazine to be sent to those interested in investing in startups.  The innovations that have been broad to the world through startups have been world changing.  The Startup Investor aims to build and support a community of investors who understand the financial potential, as well as the societal benefits of investing in startups.