Overview

9th Annual Economic Self-Reliance Conference

The annual Economic Self-Reliance Conference is the major collaboration and exchange venue for members and potential members of the ESR Network. The conference size is limited and networking time scheduled to ensure intimate networking opportunities for everyone involved.

In addition, many practitioner partners use the ESR Conference as a time to meet and interview BYU’s for job and internship opportunities (more than three-fourths speak a language other than English—107 languages in all; additionally, 82 percent of the men and 13 percent of the women at BYU have served church missions, which often entails gaining fluency in a second language and international cultural understanding). The conference is held in the Wilkinson Student Center–the heart of student activity on campus.

Emphasis for the 2006 conference include keynote, plenary, and breakout sessions given by experts in their field on the following:

• Impact assessments and business development services within the microenterprise community.
• Utilizing MicroFranchising as a method to provide turnkey microbusiness opportunities to microentrepreneurs around the world. MicroFranchising is being developed at BYU with a number of our practitioner partners. Click here to understand more about this exciting new intervention.
• Using information technology to assist in creating microbusinesses or other interventions to lift people out of poverty. The Rollins Center for eBusiness at BYU is leading this initiative they call eLeaven.
• Updates on the Economic Self-Reliance model, use, and outcome measurements.

Date / Location

9-10 March
Wilkinson Student Center
Brigham Young University Campus
Provo, Utah, USA

Fee

Early Registration (through 28 February)

Audience

The ESR Conference is the yearly conference for organizations and individuals participating with the BYU Center for Economic Self-Reliance. This network consists of

• Practitioners (NGOs, nonprofit organizations, churches, government entities, etc.)
• Researchers (faculty, students, researchers from non-academic institutions, etc.)
• Friends of the Self-Reliance Center (donors, advisors, mentors, interested community members, etc.)

Objectives

• Facilitate the collaboration and networking between conference participants.
• Create an open exchange and sharing of research, innovations, best practices, etc.
• Concretely discuss and build on the Self-Reliance Center’s research agenda

History

For the past eight years the faculty and students of the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University have sponsored a conference focusing on the microenterprise movement. The conference has also been a gathering place for likeminded organizations and individuals who were interested in other development activities that benefited families. In addition, the conference has sponsored breakout sessions dealing with NGO and nonprofit effectiveness.

With the creation of the BYU Center for Economic Self-Reliance in 2003 additional resources have been created to continue supporting and enhancing microenterprise efforts while also researching and working with other interventions that benefit families economically.