Worldwide sales opportunities for KC businesses and entrepreneurs
On Tuesday, March 2, 4–5 pm, and Wednesday, March 10, 5:30–6:30 pm, two information sessions on Futurallia 2010 for Kansas City business owners and entrepreneurs will be offered at the Kauffman Foundation. The session will provide information on and prepare participants to take part in a 20-year-old small business program called Futurallia 2010.
Futurallia 2010 is the largest conclave of small-business owners and global entrepreneurs in the world. They meet for one reason — to buy and sell products and services through a carefully crafted expo and one-on-one meetings. CEOs and business people come from Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and the Middle East. This business forum offers participants 15 personalized 30-minute, one-on-one meetings in two days, which they pre-select from the official online catalog of key decision makers who from up as many as 40 countries.
At this year’s event, to be held April 28–30 in Poitiers, France, nearly 1,000 small- to medium-sized companies and entrepreneurs will come together, to buy and sell products of all kinds and to develop leads for future business opportunities.
At the March 2 event, organizers will formally announce the selection of Kansas City as the site of the worldwide Futurallia2011 to be held May 18-20, 2011, the first time it has been held in the United States.
Participants gain a number of benefits and opportunities at Futurallia including:
- Increases in existing business
- Meeting with global companies
- Finding new business partners
- Opening new export markets
- Establishing new international business relationships
To register for the March 2 or March 10 session at Kauffman, e-mail futuralliakc@yahoo.com.
Gary L. Walker, CEO of Magic Touch Cleaning, Inc., in Kansas City commented on his experience attending Futurallia: “The international, as well as, North American opportunities that opened up to us from our participation in Futurallia Québec 2008 exceeded any of our expectations. We have gained market share because of meetings held before, during, and after the conference and we have continued to build relationships in the years following the event. We look forward to attending Futurallia 2010 Poitiers-Futurscope, France, and all the opportunity that it holds for our company. The delegation going to Poitiers this year will have the opportunity to share the vision of Kansas City as the international business center of North America.”
Futurallia 2011 supporters include the Kauffman Foundation; Oppenheimer Brothers Foundation; the Greater Kansas City Area Development Council/KC SmartPort; the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Bureau and Regional Destination Foundation; the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce/World Trade Center; the Greater Kansas City Foreign Trade Zone; the Mid-America Regional Council; the city of Kansas City, Missouri; the Greater Kansas City International Trade Council; Asian Chamber of Commerce; NASCO and other world-wide business organizations. Kansas City will send approximately 50 businesses and organizations to Futurallia 2010, and where the formal pronouncement will be made naming Kansas City the site for the May 2011 Futurallia.
For more information media and interested business people are invited to attend the March 2 session at Kauffman. Please visit the Web site, www.marc.org/international/futurallia.htm, or call Jo Anna Edgerton at jedgerton@marc.org, 816-474-4240.