Mark Cuban will deliver a keynote address at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress this summer in Indianapolis, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. announced Wednesday.
A program of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, the event is an annual convening of thousands of international business and investment leaders looking to “share and strengthen innovative approaches to empowering entrepreneurs everywhere,” according to a news release.
This year’s event, hosted by the IEDC, will take place June 2-5 at the Indiana Convention Center.
Cuban, a graduate of Indiana University, is perhaps most widely recognized as an investor on the ABC reality series “Shark Tank.” But prior to that, he was an entrepreneur, founding computer systems and software companies and investing in web-based services during a time of massive growth in the sector. He’s also a minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team.
“Many of my business and entrepreneurship activities first took shape during my college days in Indiana,” Cuban said in a written statement. “I look forward to returning to Indiana to share my story and engage with entrepreneurs, investors and policymakers from around the world.”
In addition to Cuban’s keynote, the event will include discussions, workshops, masterclasses, investor matchmaking and networking events. There are four different tracks of programming to match four key audiences, according to the network’s website: investor, founder, policymaker and ecosystem builder.
Indianapolis’ turn as host was announced at the 2023 event, held in Melbourne, Australia. This will be only the second time the convention has been held in the U.S. since its inception in 2009.
A 2024 report by the Virginia-based entrepreneurship network and strategy organization Startup Genome called Indianapolis the 11th emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem in the U.S., and ranked the state among the Top 15 places in North America for affordable talent and in the Top 30 for funding.
Learn more about the event, see daily agendas and register at genglobal.org/gec.