Virtual UF Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit brings together women co-founders, collaborators and changemakers
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The University of Florida Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit will connect the Gainesville community with local, national and international women entrepreneurs on Friday, March 25. The virtual event will feature teacher training non-profit P4H Global leaders Dr. Bertrhude Albert and Dr. Priscilla Zelaya as its keynote speakers.
Drs. Bertrhude Albert and Priscilla Zelaya will be the keynote speakers at the 2022 Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit.
Held from 10 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. via Zoom, the Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit is free for all UF students, faculty, staff, graduates and members of the community. The event, emceed by Vice President of Cornerstone Barricades Sayi Falade, also includes presentations from other notable women entrepreneurs, including:
- Vassia Daskalakis – Founder of Africa AI Labs
- Pearis Bellamy – Founder of Academics for Black Survival and Wellness
- Alison Webster – COO and co-founder of Plaine Products
- Liz Getman – Founder and Director of Inspiration at Rise Collective
- Khe Hy – Founder and CEO of RadReads
- Anna Sampson – Director of We Are Neutral
- Payal Khurana – Founder of The Mindful Co.
- Andrea Scher – Author of “Wonder Seeker,” artist and life coach
- Brandi Sadler – Founder of Wildflowers Yoga
The Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit, presented by the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center at the UF Warrington College of Business, offers inspirational stories and lessons learned from successful women entrepreneurs. The event provides opportunities for women to connect with peers and other successful business leaders to foster a community of women in entrepreneurship where they benefit through mentoring, network building, start-up and career advice, internships and role models.
“Our theme this year is intended to spotlight women co-founders, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and dispelling the stereotype that successful entrepreneurs are all lone genius heroes (like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, or even Thomas Edison),” said Jamie Kraft, Director of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center. “Elizabeth Marvel said, ‘If you can see it, you can be it.’ We hope that by giving a voice to the inspirational stories of nearly a dozen diverse Gator grad women who all co-founded successful ventures, our Warrington students will see pathways & pipelines for how they too can become leaders & changemakers.”
Dr. Kristin Joys, Director of UF’s Social Impact & Sustainability Initiative and Coordinator of the 2022 Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit shared, “We are pleased that so many remarkable women entrepreneurs & social entrepreneurs will be featured this year; we’re perhaps most proud that a number of collaborators (including the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research, the Collaboratory for Inclusive Entrepreneurship, We are Warrington, and We are Neutral) as well as a number of other campus & community partners) all working in partnership behind the scenes to make WES 2022 a success. We are doing our best to walk our talk around the power of collaboration to create impact.”
About Drs. Bertrhude Albert and Priscilla Zelaya:
Dr. Bertrhude Albert is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of P4H Global. She is a Ph.D. graduate from the department of Agricultural Education and Communication at the University of Florida with a specialization in Extension Education. As a Haitian American, Dr. Albert finds herself enamored by the story of the Haitian people and is committed to seeing countries rise to their full potential and destiny through sustainable development and human capacity growth. Throughout her academic journey, Dr. Albert has received several awards such as UF’s Hall of Fame, UF’s Teaching Assistant of the Year, the International Outreach Award, and has been awarded UF’s 40 Under 40, among many others.
Dr. Priscilla Zelaya is the Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer of P4H Global. She is a Nicaraguan American committed to eradicating abject poverty around the world. Dr. Zelaya received her BA and M.Ed. degrees from the University of Florida in Elementary Education and her Ph.D. in Agricultural Education and Communication. Between her master’s and Ph.D., Dr. Zelaya taught 2nd grade at a Title 1 school in Gainesville, FL. She drew upon her rich experience as a former elementary school teacher to create P4H’s innovative educational programs and to lead the curriculum development, evaluation design and training design for P4H. Dr. Zelaya was awarded UF’s 40 Under 40 in 2020.
Under the leadership of Dr. Albert and Dr. Zelaya, P4H has grown to become the largest teacher training nonprofit in Haiti, now operating in all 10 of the country’s geographical departments and already having trained nearly 8,000 educators across Haiti. P4H also partners with various organizations to support the improvement of educational quality in Haiti, including Food for the Poor, the Inter-American Development Bank, The Digicel Foundation, and the University of Konstanz in Germany.
