This October, Indigenous Business Month (IBM) celebrates nine years of showcasing the talent and depth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entrepreneurs from diverse business sectors.
Indigenous business month aims to ignite conversations about Indigenous business, and encourage and foster relationships and connections.
Indigenous Business Month encourages Indigenous businesses and supporters to celebrate through events across the country and online, that showcase the strength, breadth and diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses.
2023 Theme - To gather, together.
Gathering is at the heart of building relationships. We gather to seek solace, to seek feedback, to find information and ideas, to generate friendship and connection. These spaces we create together, when we gather, are exceptionally significant. Gathering spaces both can uplift us in times of stress and pressure as well as challenge us to think anew and act differently. For business gathering, you make time in your busy schedule to attend training or trade shows, to conference and seek new business relationships to grow and expand your business.
Strengthening our Indigenous business sector requires place-based gathering to expand relationships at the local level. This is done by bringing together local communities and exploring the cross overs between what’s happening in our businesses, in the community and in our personal lives. There is a collective source of pride generated by gathering, seeing each other making a difference through our business ventures. A rich tapestry of connections, information, ideas, and feeling is woven each time we gather. No year do we need to focus on local, place-based gathering and connection than this year. This year is asking a lot of our communities. This year of our national conversation and deliberation about constitutional reform.
Therefore, this year, Indigenous Business Month calls upon Indigenous businesses to gather, together. Gather and connect in your communities, in your towns and cities. Gather together to share and celebrate and dialogue about how you are going during this time of change. IBM encourages as many localised gatherings as possible and urge mob to use IBM as a vehicle to showcase the diversity of the way we gather across our many and varied nations.
As a result of the impending Referendum, the Indigenous Business Month founders have chosen to take the opportunity to focus this year’s celebration within communities. While still maintaining a national presence, IBM wanted to provide all communities with the chance to connect and build relationships with each other. As a result there will be no Indigenous Business Month awards in 2023.
We looks forward to 2024, when we get to celebrate 10 years of Indigenous Business Month
Connection, Solidarity, Continuity
This design embodies the essence of this year’s theme, To Gather, Together, which encourages place-based gathering, creating a sense of togetherness, prosperity and continuity. Depicting a group of people come together, hand in hand with a shared purpose. Each circle represents the diversity and strength of our communities, in business and beyond. Everyone brings their own story, knowledge and expertise to the gathering and through points of connection, creates cohesion for the whole. The concentric circles reference the multiple events we hold throughout Indigenous Business Month and symbolise the
layers of connection and support we aim to foster through this movement.
www.indigenousbusinessmonth.com.au
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