New Orleans Entrepreneur Week goes ‘back to school’ | Innovation

New Orleans Entrepreneur Week is going “back to school.”

Headquartered at Gallier Hall for the last five years, the annual celebration of startups is moving its home base to Loyola University New Orleans, which is co-producing this year’s event with the Idea Village, a nonprofit business accelerator.

NOEW — pronounced “noh-wee” — will take place Monday through Saturday at multiple locations citywide, featuring more than 100 speakers and panelists discussing technology, innovation, business and culture.

The week will culminate with events on Thursday and Friday at Loyola, where high-profile entrepreneurs discuss their big successes, new founders pitch their big ideas, and experts discuss the future of key New Orleans industries.

The move to the Uptown campus is the latest of several changes NOEW has made to its programming in recent years. In 2023, it hosted a music festival on the back end of the week, inspired by Austin’s SXSW.

In 2024, it aligned its schedule to coincide with the New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University, and launched the 3rd Coast Venture Summit, a ticketed event designed to connect national investors with proven regional startups.

Partnering with Loyola this year is a way to try to further broaden NOEW’s reach and appeal, according to Jon Atkinson, president and CEO of the Idea Village. 

“The partnership with Loyola is helping us grow NOEW by engaging new networks, bringing in new audiences and building a sustainable platform,” Atkinson said. “It also helps connect the university with the business community and institutionalize the educational mission that makes NOEW special.”

Busy schedule

The week will include days packed with back-to-back programming across the city that bring together diverse organizations that have a stake in the city’s entrepreneurial community.

On Monday, for instance, Junior Achievement will host an event for high schoolers at Loyola, while food trucks are setting up for a kick-off party outside The Nieux, an events space and “innovation hub” in the old Eiffel Tower building on St. Charles Avenue.

After lunch, The Beach at UNO will host the “Future Energy Experience” at the Nieux while students participate in a pitch competition at Tulane.

Simultaneously, across the lake, the St. Tammany Economic Development Corp. will be hosting a Startup Northshore event offering leadership, marketing and strategy training.

And that’s just day one. The busy schedule of events continues on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, the NOEW “summit” at Loyola begins. 

Among the highlights on campus will be a panel discussion on Friday with Matt Wisdom, who sold his tech company TurboSquid for $75 million in 2021, and Waitr founder Chris Meaux. They will talk about their approach to entrepreneurship and how artificial intelligence is reshaping the startup landscape.

Three startups that have successfully completed the Idea Village’s accelerator program will make presentations and receive an investment commitment from NOEW, which launched its Momentum Fund last year.

After the Idea Pitch event, NOEW will conclude with a panel focusing on “My Black Country,” a memoir written by songwriter Alice Randall.

The hope is that Loyola will become NOEW’s permanent home, where existing event space, audio/visual equipment and student workers can help keep costs down. The main stage will be in a large tent near the business school building. Other presentations and activities will be spread across campus.

“We can take advantage of the school’s resources, while bringing together engaged students and business leadership,” said Liz Maxwell, Idea Village senior director of strategic initiatives.

‘Front door’

Since its inception, NOEW has been designed to help local entrepreneurs create more startups. This year is no different.

At a time when the metro area is struggling with a shrinking population and “brain drain,” the co-producers want the event to serve as a big, flashing welcome sign for potential south Louisiana entrepreneurs.

“We’re trying to focus on being the front door to the ecosystem,” said Sam McCabe, director of Loyola’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Community Development, which leads Loyola’s NOEW planning efforts. “Anybody remotely interested in entrepreneurship — whether a founder, investor or someone with a new idea — is welcome here and can find content that will be valuable.”

NOEW, by another name, began in 2009, when the Idea Village hosted an event called IdeaCorps at Tulane’s business school. It took on its current moniker the next year, after moving downtown.

Since that time, NOEW’s home base has moved multiple times, including stops at the Contemporary Arts Center and Gallier Hall.

Just as they experimented with different locations, NOEW producers also have tried different formats, including various types of pitch competitions.

This year, NOEW content has been curated to be relevant to young people eyeing future careers. Areas of focus include climate tech, AI, social media and the future of the music business in the region. Loyola’s Jesuit philosophy also is shaping the event, which will examine how to make a positive social impact through entrepreneurship.

“We have a very creative, diverse group of students on campus who want to be change makers,” McCabe said. “We want to give them the info they need to get started.”

Further along

If NOEW itself wants to welcome local entrepreneurs, 3rd Coast is aimed at Gulf South startups that have momentum but need more investment to grow.

Capped at about 150 people, the event sounds like a speed dating session for regional entrepreneurs and national investors.

Companies attending include Occupi, an Alabama-based fintech company focused on the real estate sector; Arix, a Louisiana/Texas-based robotics company targeting industrial users; and Freyya, a Texas-based health tech company developing a wearable, biofeedback device to diagnose and improve the pelvic floor condition.

The Idea Village staff has been able to focus on that event because Loyola has partnered to produce NOEW.

Bobby Savoie, dean of Loyola’s business school and chair of The Idea Village, is hopeful the strategy is going to pay off.

“We’re taking what NOEW has been doing for 14 years and bringing it to the students and bringing the students to it,” Savoie said. “Every successful technology economy, like Silicon Valley or Research Triangle Park, have contact with university students that have great ideas to build businesses of the future. This could really make a difference.”