About
2025 Summit
NC IDEA will host its 7th annual Ecosystem Summit in the Triangle region on November 17-18, 2025. This year’s theme, “This Thing of Ours,” brings North Carolina’s entrepreneurial ecosystem together through connection, community, and knowledge-sharing.
The Summit is the only statewide conference that brings together North Carolina’s entrepreneurial community—founders, ecosystem builders, policymakers, and industry leaders—to celebrate the impact of entrepreneurship and shape a shared vision for making our state the best place to start and grow a business. Together, we explore ideas, create connections, and strengthen the foundation for a more innovative and inclusive economy.
2024 Summit
The 6th annual NC IDEA Ecosystem Summit brought together leaders across various sectors to celebrate entrepreneurship and increase awareness of entrepreneur-led economic development. By focusing on making our state the top destination for starting and scaling businesses, the Summit helped drive lasting change.
The event explored how entrepreneurship can redefine economic growth. Instead of relying on traditional “smokestack chasing,” which emphasizes attracting large industries, the Summit advocated for strategic investments in entrepreneurs who build businesses from the ground up. Hundreds of accomplished peers came together for this important conversation, working collectively to strengthen North Carolina’s position as the best place for entrepreneurship.
2023 Summit
NC IDEA hosted its 5th annual Ecosystem Summit on November 13-15, 2023 in the Research Triangle region. While the audience and topics of previous Summits have leaned toward support organizations and community partners, we added more targeted content for those we collectively serve, the entrepreneurs. To make all this exciting content and networking fit into one conference, we added a third day to the 2023 Ecosystem Summit!
Since our inaugural Summit in 2019, NC IDEA has continued to foster partnerships and unique connections that are making a meaningful difference for North Carolina’s entrepreneurial community.
Past Summits
In November 2019, NC IDEA hosted the first-ever Ecosystem Summit with the ambition to catalyze entrepreneurship as an economic development strategy for the state of North Carolina. The Summit was an unprecedented gathering of nearly 500 individuals and organizations who support, encourage and nourish North Carolina’s entrepreneurs. Attendees came together to share what is working; address issues and concerns; meet and network with those doing similar work in other communities; and celebrate and promote entrepreneurs and their successes across the state.
In both 2020 and 2021, attendees connected virtually to celebrate entrepreneurship and look to the future of building a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem for all.
In 2022, attendees reconnected in person to showcase the growth of our entrepreneurial ecosystem that has supported a record-breaking number of new high-propensity firm filings since 2020. Nearly 500 attendees joined us from around the state representing: Universities, HBCUs, Community Colleges, Small Business Centers, CDFIs, Economic Development Organizations, Public School Administrators, Foundations and Philanthropists, county and local government officials, policy makers and inspirational entrepreneurs.
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