Businesswomen and aspiring businesswomen alike have the opportunity to be a part of a conference where they can connect, be inspired and learn about other businesses owned by women.

The Women Who Create Conference’s purpose is to bring together women entrepreneurs and business owners, those who are aspiring to do so and individuals of all genders who support women entrepreneurs for a day of workshops and speakers with a goal to individual businesses.

This event will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday at the Iowa State Economic Development Core Facility at the Research Park, 1805 Collaboration Place, Ames.

This event will take place for two main reasons, said Diana Wright, program director for this conference. She said the first reason is to connect and to have women entrepreneurs from all across the state of Iowa together in one room in order to support other women entrepreneurs. She said the second reason was to encourage the growth of new women entrepreneurs in their endeavors.

“We want to support and grow women entrepreneurs in all that they are doing,” Wright said.

During this conference there will be workshops covering many topics such as money and why it matters when growing a business, followed by many other activities throughout the day.

There will also be a panel that will cover the state of women entrepreneurship, and there will be a keynote speaker, Sarah Grant, who is the owner and founder of “Sticks,” an object art and furniture company, during lunch.

Following the conference there will be a free event entitled “SheTalks” that is free to the public and is at 4:30 p.m.

There will be six SheTalk presentations that are similar to a PechaKucha, where each presenter will have 20 slides, and have only 20 seconds to present each slide. All of the six of the speakers are women and will be speaking around the theme of women who create.

“This event is a story-telling event to celebrate women who create and how they create in their communities,” Wright said.

Wright said she is excited to hold the second Women Who Create Conference and SheTalk, in which there will be a sold out room that is filled with many women and ideas coming together to talk about women and business.