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September 21, 2016 The Skanner MINORITY BUSINESS ENTERPRISE EDITION Page 7 MBE 2016 Special Business Edition SBA: Six Cities Launch Their “Startup in a Day” Solutions Los Angeles creates an open source business portal with $250,000 prize Keith Bullock says Small Business Association WASHINGTON – Six cities: Los Ange- les, Boston, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City, Washington, D.C., and Jackson, Mich- igan have launched their “Startup in Day” (SIAD) solutions making it easier for businesses to get started. Several additional cities will be launching their solutions over the next month. “I joined President Obama last sum- mer in calling on our colleagues at city halls and in Native American commu- nities across the country to pledge to make it easier for every entrepreneur to start a business by building stream- lined, business-friendly, online tools. I’m so pleased to see nearly 100 cities and communities have taken the pledge and many are now implementing their solutions,” said SBA Administrator Ma- ria Contreras-Sweet. “I’m encouraging more cities, large and small, as well as Native American communities to join this initiative and take the Startup in a Day pledge.” Last year, as part of the initiative, 25 cities and two Native American com- munities were each awarded a $50,000 prize as part of the Startup in a Day – Start Small prize competition. One city, Los Angeles, was awarded a $250,000 prize as part of the Startup in a Day – Dream Big prize competition. For both competitions, each winner was funded based on their proposed ideas on how to meet the SIAD competition chal- lenge. These ideas have evolved over the last several months resulting in a variety of solutions. “I am particularly pleased the City of Los Angeles took on the additional challenge of creating an online tool that is open-source and can be shared with cities and communities across the country. This efort will make it pos- sible for even more entrepreneurs to have better access to the information and services they need,” said Contre- ras-Sweet. Los Angeles oicially opened their business portal today (http://business. lacity.org/). The LA Business Portal is an online resource for entrepreneurs looking to start a business in LA or businesses looking to grow their oper- ations. It entails key product features such as the Start Up Guide, which pro- vides a roadmap for business regis- tration based on answers to questions around business types, Starter Kits which are quick how-to-guides sup- porting the most popular business types in the city, a Resource Library, as well as content pages related to how to plan, manage, or grow a business. Sev- eral unique visual elements are also built into the site to engage the user and navigate them through the content on the site. Los Angeles’ code, as well as code from other open-source SIAD solu- tions, can be found on GitHub at https:// github.com/StartupInADay Business portal links for other launched cities: • Boston: https://www.boston.gov/ starting-business • Jackson, MI: http://buildmybusiness. cityofjackson.org/ • Milwaukee: http://city.milwaukee. gov/StartSmart • Salt Lake City: http://www.slcgov. com/buslicense • Washington, D.C.: https://business. dc.gov/ Each of the Startup in a Day winners and nearly 100 additional cities have taken a pledge to work towards meet- ing the Startup in a Day challenge. To help with these eforts, cities and communities that take the Startup in a Day pledge are invited to join the Start- up in a Day Community of Practice. The goal of the Community of Practice is to connect cities on a peer-to-peer level with other city staf that are creating online platforms for business permits and licenses. The Community is linked via conference calls, webinars, and an online discussion board. SBA, along with the National League of Cities and Code for America support the Commu- nity by connecting participating cities with various, non-monetary resources. For more details about Startup in a Day visit www.sba.gov/startup. This site will continue to be updated as solutions are launched. Transit cont’d from pg 6 Movement, but at times, union lead- ership has taken their eye of the ball. “We kind of lost our focus,” said Bull- ock. “Once people get into leadership positions, it seems they become like management, like elitists, and that’s the wrong attitude to have, because the struggle continues every day. Bullock continued: “You can never get to a point where you are satisied and think you have done all that you can do. You have to keep your eye on the ball and know where you are go- ing and how you’re going to get there because otherwise you’ll be lost.” Since the Civil Right Movement, the membership of trade unions has grown in racial and ethnic diversi- ty, but that demographic shit has not translated to increased diversity among the top leadership in the trade union movement in the U.S. “Our leadership is majority White and, when you look at it, I don’t think we have a Black person that oversees an international union, so it’s still very much a struggle to have minori- ties in particular positions,” Bullock said. “We’re on the frontlines, but be- hind the scenes, there are a lot of Cau- casians.” In addition to union leadership in- clusion, Bullock said he’d like to see more African-American and Latinos strive to be owners of the businesses that contract with the industry.