October 8, 1999
Pre-WTO forum helps women, minority entrepreneurs go global
Donald King has designed schools before, but you wouldn’t expect a medium-sized Seattle architectural firm like his to go all the way to Ghana to do one.
Yet King, an African American, took the job to aid an underdeveloped part of Africa; his middle school in Ghana’s remote Volta region will be one of the area’s few buildings with indoor plumbing.
King will be one of 10 entrepreneurs sharing tips on doing business overseas at a pre-World Trade Organization forum being held Saturday, Oct. 16, at an unusual venue in the community: Seattle’s Ballard High School. The event is open to all, requiring only a $5 donation to the high school.
“Accessing Global Markets: Women & Minorities in Trade & Technology” will be the first pre-WTO-conference education event sponsored by the Seattle Host Organization and the University of Washington.
Like some other American minority businesspeople, King embarked on an overseas venture partly out of what he calls an “emotional, almost spiritual connection with another country” based on ancestral, linguistic or religious linkage.
But even without such a special interest, he said, businesspeople need to look abroad “to go into new markets and find new business.”
Suzanne Brainard, forum organizer and director of the UW’s Center for Women in Science and Engineering, said minorities already constitute one of the fastest-growing groups of entrepreneurs in the United States, generating $500 billion in revenues. And women already own 40 percent of all businesses.
Global trade, she said, offers a market that both groups need to tap.
“This forum is about empowering women and minorities to take a leadership role in the global economy,” Brainard said. “Successful people will share their experiences – the challenges, the lessons learned and the best practices.”
For King, the Seattle architect, competing for work internationally hasn’t been easy, but he said he generally encounters less discrimination abroad than in his homeland.
“In America, negative expectations of minority professionals are not uncommon,” King said. “Overseas, there’s a different attitude.”
Other conference participants include:
? Donalee Rutledge, founder and CEO of marketstreet.com, a software services company and winner of the Mayor’s Outstanding Small Business Award.
? Kristin Martinez, founder and principal of Sound Point Ventures LLC, which specializes in innovative investing, microlending and venture philanthropy.
? Gretchen Sorenson, regional administrator for the Small Business Administration.
Welcoming attendees will be UW President Richard L. McCormick, Washington Council on International Trade President Patricia Davis, former U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand Della Newman, and Seattle WTO education and outreach chairwoman Constance Rice.
The forum is part of the run-up to the ministerial conference coming to Seattle Nov. 30-Dec. 3 to inaugurate a new round of negotiations of the World Trade Organization.
“Accessing Global Markets: Women & Minorities in Trade & Technology” will be held in the auditorium of the new Ballard High School, 1418 N.W. 65th St. in Seattle, from 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m.
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For more information, contact Brainard or coordinator Priti Mody at 206-543-4810 (primody@u.washington.edu). King can be reached at 206-443-9939.
A conference schedule are available at http://www.washington.edu/wto/women/forum.html. More UW WTO-related initiatives are described at http://www.washington.edu/wto.
