WEconnect Sessions

Build Your WEconnect Experience

Explore sessions built around the real opportunities and challenges entrepreneurs face at every stage of the journey. Choose from interactive workshops, candid conversations, and practical sessions covering everything from leadership and funding to launching, building, connecting, and navigating what comes next. Build a schedule that fits your goals and leave WEconnect with new ideas, useful resources, and connections that can help you move forward.

Check Out This Year’s Incredible Lineup

Morning Sessions

9:30–10:30 a.m. | 10:45–11:45 a.m.

During registration, you will have the opportunity to choose the TWO sessions below that best match your interests and goals.

Find Your Inner Leader (Leadership Lab)

Everyone is a leader — not just the people with titles. This interactive lab uses the Changemaker Leadership Canvas to help you map who you are, how you naturally lead, and the change only you can create. Through guided self-reflection and structured peer exchanges, you’ll leave knowing your own leadership strengths, practical ways to motivate the people around you, and real relationships built in the room. Less lecture, more working session.

Location: Room 603 (Keynote)

Presented by: Happy Valley Changemakers Collective

Before You Build: The Business, Legal & IP Decisions Every Entrepreneur Should Make

Turning an idea into a successful business requires more than a great product or service. Entrepreneurs need to make smart decisions about their business model, legal structure, contracts, intellectual property, and other foundational issues—often before they realize they need professional help. In this interactive panel, experts from the Penn State SBDC, Entrepreneur Assistance Clinic, and Intellectual Property Clinic will walk through the key questions entrepreneurs should consider at different stages of building a business. Come with your questions and leave with a practical roadmap for identifying and addressing potential problems before they become expensive ones.

Location: Lobby

Presented by: Small Business Development Center + Entrepreneur Assistance Clinic + Intellectual Property Clinic

Your First Business Partner Might Be Your Municipality

Before you sign a lease, renovate a space, or open your doors, there’s one partnership worth building first: your local municipality. Keri Kenepp demystifies zoning, permits, codes, and development approvals, and shows how local officials help entrepreneurs avoid expensive mistakes and find resources they didn’t know existed. Real examples, practical advice, and a case for talking to the township early rather than after something has already gone wrong.

Location: Room 612

Presented by: College Township / CTIDA (Keri Kenepp)

From Idea to Storefront: What It Takes to Open a Brick & Mortar Business

You’ve got the concept. Do you know what it actually takes to open a physical location? An honest panel — a business owner, a commercial landlord, and a local planning official — on what they wish more entrepreneurs knew before opening day. Lease terms, buildout, timelines, and the costs nobody warns you about. Specific to Downtown State College, applicable anywhere.

Location: Room 611

Presented by: Downtown State College (Kendra Kielbasa)

A Primer on Obtaining Your First Funding

External funding is more complicated than a pitch and a check. This session walks the path from an idea with no money to enough of the right money to actually build — what counts as “good” money, what strings come attached, and the common missteps founders make on a first raise. Practical do’s and don’ts from Ben Franklin Technology Partners, who fund early-stage companies across Central and Northern Pennsylvania.

Location: Classroom 113

Presented by: Ben Franklin Technology Partners

Afternoon Sessions

1:15–2:15 p.m. | 2:30–3:30 p.m.

Choose your favorite TWO sessions below.

How I Built This: State College

Local founders tell the real version of how they built a business in Happy Valley — the pivot that saved them, the hire they got wrong, the year nobody talks about. Modeled on the podcast: honest, specific, and light on polish. You’ll hear what success actually looked like from people who built it here, in this town, with these constraints.

Location: Room 603 (Keynote)

Presented by: Happy Valley LaunchBox powered by PNC Bank

The 1-Hour Prototype: Build the Least, Learn the Most

Most people picture a prototype as version 1.0 of the whole product — which is the most expensive way to learn the least. Michelle Crowl (The Rivet) and Tristan Hess (OriginLabs) flip it: start with the question you actually need answered, then build only enough to answer it. You’ll see how OriginLabs prototypes with sketching, 3D printing, laser cutting, and scaled models, then work a live challenge on a real product idea. Leave with a one-page guide for running your own hour.

Location: Lobby

Presented by: The Rivet and OriginLabs

Risk, Fail, Pivot

Every founder has a story they don’t tell at networking events. This session is built on those. Real entrepreneurs talk through the risks they took, what broke, and how the failure became the basis for a pivot that worked. Interactive discussion rather than a panel of highlight reels — come with your own bad quarter and compare notes.

Location: Room 612

Presented by: Center Region Entrepreneurial Network (CREN)

Leveraging University Internships in Your Small Business

You don’t need a big company to host an intern. Smeal College of Business walks small businesses through building an internship worth a student’s time — scoping a real project, what students are actually looking for, how placement and academic credit work, and what it costs. Penn State talent is down the street; this is how to put it to work.

Location: Classroom 113

Presented by: Penn State Smeal College of Business

Building Community Through Connection

Business is easier when you’re not doing it alone. The Chamber of Business & Industry of Centre County works through why community matters to a small business, how to build real connections instead of collecting business cards, and the networking skills that make a first conversation lead somewhere. Ends with the part most people skip: how to follow up and keep it going.