How I Built This Summit Announces The 2019 Class of How I Built This Fellows

September 17, 2019, Washington, D.C.- NPR's How I Built This Summit with Guy Raz received close to a thousand How I Built This Fellowship applications and is excited to announce their 2019 selection of 60 Fellows.

Hailing from around the world, this year's How I Built This Fellows cohort will form a professional support network at the Summit on October 22nd and 23rd, supported by American Express at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The How I Built This Fellowship seeks to discover, empower and elevate promising entrepreneurs with innovative business ideas, perseverance and grit.

"From the beginning, we wanted the Summit to be an inclusive, collaborative and joyful gathering," says Guy Raz, host and creator of NPR's How I Built This podcast. "We created the How I Built This Fellowship as a way to double down on that proposition. I was completely blown away when I met the inaugural class of HIBT Fellows at last year's summit. I can't wait to meet this year's group of incredible, high-potential entrepreneurs from communities and regions that aren't always well represented at business conferences. These are builders with big ideas that can change the world."

NPR's How I Built This Fellowship is an opportunity for innovators at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey to attend the Summit and gain resources to help them succeed in their business ventures. The 2019 How I Built This Fellows come from a diverse set of industries ranging from apparel, beauty, education, technology, health and wellness, food and beverage, construction, transportation and more. You can learn more about each 2019 How I Built This Fellow at summit.npr.org/fellowship.

"Applying to be a fellow was the ultimate opportunity to be in the room with some of the founders who have not only impacted me personally through their own stories, but have given me a blueprint to grow and build my own company. I look forward to meeting and networking with other entrepreneurs and industry professionals." says Jamia Ramsey, 2019 How I Built This Fellow and founder of Blendz Apparel.

The How I Built This Fellowship includes a complimentary ticket to the Summit, an in-person workshop for Fellows before the Summit, reserved seating for the Summit's main stage programming, post-Summit educational resources, and access to an expanded professional network of previous HIBT Fellows and Summit attendees.

The Fellowship application opened on June 24th, 2019 and closed at 11:59pm EDT on Wednesday, July 31st.

Listen to How I Built This on NPR One and wherever podcasts are available.

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Press Contact

Interested in covering the Summit or interviewing Guy Raz? Please contact:

Anais Laurent, NPR Media Relations

mediarelations@npr.org