Historically Black Xavier University of Louisiana is partnering with the U.S. Minority Business Development Agency of the Department of Commerce in a collaborative project with the City of New Orleans. The Minority Business Enterprises Readiness Project is an initiative focused on disseminating pertinent information about disaster preparedness and about obtaining disaster related contracts to minority owned businesses.
The project will create a website where minority businesses and small businesses can register with the System of Award for bid and contracting opportunities in the aftermath of a disaster, and a national platform to provide resource agency information, technical assistant providers, and procurements officials throughout the USA, Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Additionally, Xavier will also host a call center to provide direct contact to MBE’s and small business support in navigating the website, educational resources and procurement opportunities to increase/leverage business growth and expansion opportunities; and network connections.
“$306 billion in clean up contracts were distributed in 2017 and this project is designed to help more minority-owned businesses to be in position to obtain some of the disaster cleanup work that is likely to occur in the future,” said Mark Quinn, the Conrad N. Hilton Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship and director of the project. “We are excited to address this issue with the support of the Minority Business Development Agency.”
