MACON – Mercer Innovation Center (MIC) will welcome Nadia Osman, director of SparkMacon, as part of the Open MIC Student Entrepreneurial Lecture Series Sept. 15 from 10-11 a.m.
The student-oriented lecture series is free and open to the public and will take place in the Mercer Innovation Center, located in the former Religious Life Center on Mercer's Macon campus.
Osman is originally from Savannah and graduated from Mercer with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology as well as a Master of Business Administration. She is also a graduate of the Georgia Academy for Economic Development.
Prior to her work with SparkMacon, she held multiple titles at the College Hill Alliance, an economic and community development organization based in Macon that focused on business recruitment and retention, quality-of-life enhancement and catalyzing commercial and residential real estate development in the historic College Hill Corridor neighborhood. The organization leveraged over $200 million in public and private investment in College Hill's 2-square-mile area.
Osman has presented at both academic and professional conferences in sessions devoted to community and economic development in post-industrial cities. Her discussion of these topics is featured in the recently-released Maker City Playbook. Currently, she is a member of the Georgia Economic Developers Association, Technology Association of Georgia, International Economic Development Council and Downtown Macon Rotary Club.
MIC and SparkMacon, Macon's premier makerspace, aim to develop the already rich and brewing culture of entrepreneurism and innovative thinking in Macon and at Mercer. Through efforts such as the Open MIC Student Entrepreneurial Lecture Series, the organizations strive to foster relationships, network, and collaborate with entrepreneurs, local community, other universities and beyond.
For more information, to be added to the MIC listserv, or to be considered as a speaker for the series, contact Dr. Sam Lankford, director of the Mercer Innovation Center, at mic@mercer.edu or Nadia Osman, director of SparkMacon, at nadia@sparkmacon.com.
