This is a minority vendor conference, so they are looking for a Black male or female speaker, someone with some name recognition but doesn’t have to be a superstar. Last year they had Malik Yoba.
They want the speaker to be an advocate in some form as it relates to entrepreneurship, opportunities for Black women and a plus if they weave in equity.
Dawn Dickson is a serial entrepreneur and inventor with over 20 years of experience in technology, marketing and business development. Dawn is the Founder and CEO of PopCom, the company has built an automated retail technology platform for vending machines and kiosks that allows retailers to engage and understand their customers, sell more products, and learn from big data.
Dawn has received numerous awards and accolades including being recognized on the inaugural Forbes Next 1000 List, listed among INC Magazine’s 100 top Female Founders, and being named the 2020 OBWS Black Entrepreneur of the Year presented by Snapchat. Dawn has been featured in countless media outlets including the cover of Black Enterprise magazine, Fortune, Fast Company, Venture Beat, Huff Post, Essence Magazine, and more. Dawn has an expertise in raising traditional and non-traditional business capital, having raised millions of dollars for her ventures since 2001. In 2019, Dawn is considered to be a pioneer in the equity crowdfunding space as the first female founder globally to raise a secure token offering (STO) of over $1M using equity crowdfunding, her total as of 2021 exceeds $6M from over 10,000 investors globally.
A recognized leader in entrepreneurship and technology, Dawn was in invited to testify before a Congressional Committee on Small Business in March 2020 in a hearing titled “Building Blocks of Change: The Benefits of Blockchain Technology for Small Businesses”. Dawn is the winner of the 2020 OBWS Entrepreneur of the Year award, a graduate of the 2019 Nasdaq Milestone Maker program, she was honored as one of the National Urban League Young Professionals ‘Heroes in the Movement’, featured as INC Magazine Top 100 Female Founders, featured in Who’s Who in Black Columbus, Who Who’s in Black Atlanta, and honored as one of Legacy Miami’s Top 40 Under 40 Leaders in South Florida. Dawn was awarded a design patent in 2020 for her invention of the PopShop Digital pop-up shop, an innovative new vending machine that leverages facial recognition and machine learning technology to capture customer data and insights.
Dawn is a seasoned professional speaker, business advisor, and angel investor. She continues to be recognized as one of the nation’s top retail tech entrepreneurs.
Speaker Profile Page: https://www.gravityspeakers.com/speakers/dawn-dickson
Proposed keynote topic: Female Entrepreneur: When Being Underrepresented is an Advantage
Dawn discusses her 20+-year journey as a woman in technology and ways for other women to leverage their unique skill sets to design the life and business they have always desired. Topics include lifestyle design, the importance of self-care, quieting the noise in your life, finding your ‘why’ and staying true to yourself.