Open Trellis, PO Box 61025, Richmond, VA (2026)

08/21/2026

The energy heading into the Fall 2026 Robins Entrepreneur Series is something else🚀 all held here at the University of Richmond - Robins School of Business.

Every academic year, we bring founders, investors, and builders into the room with our students — and this year's lineup might be the strongest yet. Now with over 450 meetups under our belt, we've grown into a great segment of the Startup Community: hundreds of sessions, thousands of people, and a steady stream of Richmond entrepreneurs who show up for the next generation.

We're kicking things off with someone who embodies exactly what this series is about.

👉 Vincent Vu, MBA. MA. TEDx, Founder & CEO of Kinis.ai — a Richmond-based movement health company making clinically informed movement assessments more accessible.

Vincent brings 15+ years across engineering, product, and entrepreneurship. He's built businesses from the ground up and taught innovation and entrepreneurship at SCAD and VCU. His work sits right at the intersection we love to explore with students: technology, human health, and turning ideas into real-world impact.

If you've ever wondered how an idea becomes a company that actually helps people, this is the conversation to catch.

To Vincent and every founder joining us this season — thank you for giving your time to our students. This is how an entrepreneurial ecosystem gets built: one honest conversation at a time.

More speakers this fall: https://robins.richmond.edu/professional-experiential/career/events/entrepreneur-series.html

📍 University of Richmond – Robins School of Business.

🗓️ Fall 2026 Series kicks off Friday, August 28th, 11:30 - 1pm

08/19/2026

We help more people become business owners. Our Fall 2026 cohort is forming now. 🌱We love working with people like us, fellow founders making it happen!

RVA Works is a 13-week business accelerator for people launching new businesses, proving a market exists, testing their product, and building a financial model for business ownership — and the results speak for themselves. Since 2014:

📊 130 program graduates
🚀 80+ percent go on to launch a business
📈 Alumni report a 38% average increase in annual income

Here's what the program includes:
🔹 13 weeks of facilitated discussion
🔹 One-on-one mentoring
🔹 Referrals to support agencies and service providers
🔹 Alumni peer-learning groups
🔹 Pro bono attendance in future sessions
🔹 Weekly networking to grow your professional circle

Curious? Come meet our alumni-entrepreneurs, mentors, and the founders joining this cohort — and bring your questions.

📅 Thursday, Aug. 27th
🕕 6:00–8:00 PM
📍 Henrico Federal Credit Union, at Henrico Adult Education – Regency Campus, 1420 North Parham Road, Henrico, VA

🅿️ Free parking near NOVA of Virginia Aquatics, lower level of the parking deck. Enter at the corner with the blue Henrico Adult Education sign.

No pre-registration required. In-person only — no virtual option.
Want to learn more before then? Comment below or send me a message.

08/12/2026

Calling all Richmond entrepreneurs, students, and business leaders! 💡

The Robins Entrepreneur Series is back at the University of Richmond - Robins School of Business this fall—and you’re invited! 🏛️

Whether you're launching a startup, mentoring early-stage founders, or curious about product design, join us every other Friday to learn directly from accomplished business leaders sharing their unfiltered journeys.

🥪 Bonus: A light lunch and coffee are provided!

🗓 Schedule (Selected Fridays):
11:30 AM – Light Lunch & Networking
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM – Presentation & Open Q&A

Fall Speaker Lineup:
• Aug 28: Vincent Vu, MBA, MA (Founder, TEDx Speaker)
• Sept 4: Chris Garnett (PartnerMD)
• Sept 18: Andrew Young (CFO, Capital One)
• Sept 25: Vernon T. Foster II (Growth Dinners & WebinarRev)
• Oct 2: Stephen Kelly & David Patton (Ivy Capital Partners - Dublin)
• Oct 16: James (Jim) Jernigan & Rodger Thomason (Product Design)

📍 Where: EY Innovation Lab (Room 123), Robins School of Business

🚗 Parking: Free 2-hour visitor parking in Lots U5 & U6 right next to the building (just log your license plate at the door).

💻 Virtual Option: Can't make it in person? Join live on Zoom.

🎟 Free & open to the public — no pre-registration needed!

Tag a friend or founder who should come with you! 👇
For more information: https://robins.richmond.edu/professional-experiential/career/events/entrepreneur-series.html

07/28/2026

Most founders assume that building a valuable business is the same as building personal wealth.

It isn't.

Your company can be thriving while your personal finances stay exposed — to a health event, a market shift (concentration risk), or a poorly structured exit. And the problem usually isn't a lack of advice.

Founders are drowning in it, from brokers, bankers, planners, and attorneys all solving for their own slice.

What's actually missing is clarity on the right question to ask at each stage.

In my latest Forbes Business Council piece, I break down the financial priorities across the journey:

→ Stage 1, Idea to Launch: personal survival and asset protection — before the business generates a dime

→ Stage 2, Establishing Sales: tax-advantaged retirement vehicles and protecting the revenue engine

→ Stage 3 Sustainable Growth: Concentration risk, and why "growth = security" is a dangerous assumption

Each stage comes with the specific questions to put to your CPA, attorney, and financial planner — the ones that separate founders who build durable wealth from those who just build a valuable company.

This is the first in a series mapping the full five-stage roadmap. (Stages 4 and 5, on scaling and exit in today's economy, are already live too.)

Read Stage 1–3 here: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2026/01/13/the-founders-roadmap-financial-planning-by-business-stage/

If you're navigating any of these stages and want a second set of eyes on the whole picture — not just one piece of it — I'm taking a few founder conversations, booking at "Fickett on Forbes": https://fickettonforbes.com/

05/22/2026

Dale Fickett: A huge "Thank you" to Swati Sachan, with whom I've been honored to co-author our conference paper...

We were accepted for the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Grenada, Spain.

Our paper:
"Post-Quantum DeFi for Inclusive Banking by Federated Intelligence"

IEEE conferences are much more than academic gatherings; they function as the "global engine room" for technological advancement. With over 1,200 conferences held annually across roughly 80 countries, they represent the primary venue where cutting-edge research transitions into industry standards and consumer technology:

1.The Global Gold Standard for Research
2. Catalyst for Global Industry Standards
3. Economic and Geopolitical Influence
4. Professional "Social Capital"

Over 500,000 annual attendees globally,
reach ing members in 160+ countries; and 45% of members are outside the US.

Here's why our paper matters beyond this critical academic milestone:

The U.S. has roughly 33 million small businesses. A disproportionate number of them — particularly those led by women, minorities, rural entrepreneurs, and first-generation owners — are denied capital not because they're bad risks, but because existing AI lending systems were never trained to evaluate them accurately.

This research introduces a new approach:

> Multiple banks can collaborate on a lending decision without ever exposing their private data to each other — enabled by encryption designed to withstand even quantum computing attacks.

> The judgment of experienced human underwriters is encoded mathematically and woven into the AI's decision-making — so borrowers with thin credit files get evaluated by collective expertise, not just historical data.

> Every decision is fully auditable and compliant with U.S. and EU data protection law — no black boxes, no regulatory exposure.

We proved the concept on agricultural lending in rural Virginia, in partnership with four regional banks. The technology works. Now the question is deployment.

This is the infrastructure layer beneath Open Trellis — and it's one piece of a larger mission: ensuring that access to capital is determined by the merit of an idea and the character of an entrepreneur, not by the legacy gaps in a dataset.

05/15/2026

Over the past two weeks at RVA Works, we've been blessed with the presence of three excellent speakers. We wanted to take a moment to express our gratitude to Ruth Lemma, Independent Marketing Specialist, who provided a great overview of Social Media Marketing, including:

> Growth Marketing Framework
> Understanding Your Funnel
> Setting a North Star (OKRs)
> Content Strategy That Converts
> Social Media Tactics That Work

Next we had Ayshia Grimes of Instyleversity did an outstanding job walking our founders through:

> Search & Local Visibility (SEO and PPC)
> Tailored Business-Specific Playbooks
> 30-Day Action Plans

Last night we had another great discussion, led by Charese Chambers of Financial Fancy CFO (https://financialfancycfo.com/home). Charese covered:

> Foundations of Bookkeeping as a Growth Tool
> Introduction to Financial Statements
> Investor-Ready: Financial Transparency Attracts Funding
> Scalability: The Path to Profitable Growth

Thanks so much to Ruth, Ayshia, and Charese for the excellent work. For everyone interested in joining us at RVA Works, we'll have a public discussion on Thursday, May 21st at 6pm. Please DM me for details, if you'd like to meet the current cohort of founders.

05/06/2026

Last night we had a great focus group and video shoot for Open Trellis. Promotional content to follow...

The whole team is incredibly grateful for:

- Videography from John Marin
- Classroom complements of Henrico FCU Charity Rupp
- On Camera - Warren Gayle Turner, Jr. , Rothstein Campbell, Sidarta Tanu, Daksh and Brendan
- Excellent Facilitation with Shannon Eastwood
- Plus all of the founders who came to share their experiences

04/21/2026

Meet Shannon Eastwood & Paul Maguire are talking product design and commercialization. This will be the last of our Robins Entrepreneur Speaker series for Spring 2026...

Interested in product inventions? Do you have a concept in mind, one that needs to be prototyped? Should you create a new venture, or license it for another firm to commercialize it?

Join the conversation with the experts...

This hybrid meetup will happen Friday April 24th, 11:30am - 1pm. All of the details on Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/opentrellis/events/314398029/?slug=opentrellis&eventId=314272875&isFirstPublish=true

04/16/2026

A special note of gratitude to Paul Beyer and Hunter Walsh for their commitment to enhancing our Startup Community. They have been great advocates for expanding access to entrepreneurial opportunity, so more people benefit through business ownership.

The Innovation Summit, Tom Tom Foundation is a great convening point for the next era of entrepreneurship and ideas taking shape. Founders, investors, inventors, and ecosystem leaders rally around "bold projects that turn ambition into community impact."

For more information: https://www.tomtomfoundation.org/tickets

Building a company today requires far more than a breakthrough product. It demands the courage to take risks, to iterate publicly, to navigate uncertainty, to attract and deploy capital wisely, and to build communities of support that make growth possible. Thank you again, Paul and Hunter, for drawing us together for these vital conversations.

--Dale Fickett

04/14/2026

Margaret Upshur will join us at the University of Richmond - Robins School of Business, for this series of entrepreneurial speakers. Join us Friday, April 17th 11:30am - 1pm for what's sure to be an insightful conversation on:

> Entrepreneurial Passion

> Sustainability & Circular Economy

> Mobius Materials Business Model

> Overcoming Founder Challenges

All of the event details for this Hybrid event are on Meetup, including Zoom Webinar access: https://www.meetup.com/opentrellis/events/314272875/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events

Please note will hold another session on April 24th with Shannon Eastwood and Paul Maguire on product design & commercialization. The April 24th session is the last for the Spring 2026 series. https://robins.richmond.edu/about/news-events/entrepreneur-series.html

Open Trellis

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