From the Nominator

"The West Point Association of Graduates (WPAOG) is the alumni association and foundation for the United States Military Academy (USMA). Our mission is to serve West Point and its graduates, known throughout history as the “Long Gray Line.”  

USMA Alumni commit to serving at least eight years in the U.S. Army, including five years on active duty following graduation. To meet the ever-changing needs of graduates and work toward our aspirational vision for the Long Gray Line to be the most highly connected alumni body in the world, WPAOG organized the first West Point Entrepreneur Summit in 2017. The overwhelmingly positive response inspired us to host a second Summit in 2019, also at West Point, before realizing that the greater audience spread beyond the USMA gates. 

Using data to expand our reach, we created an entrepreneur code in our CRM database of over 55,000 living graduates, including early-stage and experienced entrepreneurs, C-suite executives, and angel/institutional investors. This list, comprised of about 400 graduates in 2019, tripled to over 1,200 graduates identifying as entrepreneurs following our 2021 Summit. 

Realizing the importance of working in a creative space and attracting a greater number of participants, WPAOG decided to shift the conference from West Point to Austin, TX (Texas claiming the title of the number one startup state in America). Additionally, most of our identified graduate entrepreneurs showed a home location within the state of Texas. 

The 2017 summit had 69 attendees. The 2021 event more than doubled in attendance, drawing 177 graduates."

From the Judges

West Point's Entrepreneur Summit was a fantastic initiative that the staff built upon and improved significantly. We were impressed by their thoughtful re-imagination of this hallmark event from the selection of venue to the securing of sponsorship. They had a great use of budget and really excelled at achieving their goals of bringing this subset of the community together in a meaningful way. This was a "post" pandemic event done correctly.