2013 Micro Business Incubator 8th Class

The Upper Albany Main Street (UAMS)/Micro-Business Incubator (MBI) is excited to present today’s guest speaker to the current MBI class, Mrs. Nadine Francis West. Mrs. West is the Vice President and Chief Administration, Finance and Governance for the Metro Hartford Alliance. The information that Mrs. West provided had the students on the edge of their seats. Listening with interest the class learned of new initiatives that the Metro Hartford Alliance is executing currently. The Graduate!CT, (http://www.metrohartford.com/initiatives/graduate-ct) were professionals can seek guidance on furthering their education. Also, the Hartford Young Professionals and Entrepreneurs (HYPE) initiative was mention and of course many questions were asked. One such question was asked by Monique Smalls “Mrs. West how does one become a member of HYPE?” Mrs. West of course explained the process of contacting the Executive Director of HYPE and as a University of Hartford student membership is free; the main purposes of HYPE is attracting and retaining talent in the Hartford region, for further readings please visit the HYPE website (http://www.metrohartford.com/initiatives/hype). Mrs. West also spoke of the Strategic Plan 2012-2013 titled “Sustain the Core Seize New Opportunities”, further information can be found at, (http://www.metrohartford.com/initiatives/strategic-plan). Finally Mrs. West finished this most enlightening presentation by speaking about the many other programs and initiatives at the Metro Hartford Alliance such as the; Micro-Business Incubator, BusinessLINC Connecticut, and the newest initiative called LiveHartford. LiveHartford (http://www.livehartford.org/) is an initiative to help professionals stay and live in Hartford, which is a very diversified and Historic city. We thank Mrs. West for her time and most exciting presentation.