Contributor

John-Paul Smith

Director of Innovate United at United Way of the Greater Triangle

John-Paul Smith is Director of Innovate United at United Way of the Greater Triangle. He has worked as Chief Innovation Officer for Forward Communities, Replication and Scaling Manager for Bull City Forward in Durham, North Carolina, Manager of Small Business and Entrepreneurship the Greensboro Partnership in Greensboro, and as a field hand on a political campaign for the 2015 JFK Profile in Courage award recipient.

His work focuses on nurturing entrepreneurial ecosystems for place-based communities, social innovators and entrepreneurs. He helped launch Queen City Forward in Charlotte, spearhead the Piedmont Triad’s first Startup Weekend, and lead the United Way of the Greater Triangle’s 2014 Childhood Hunger Innovation Challenge before joining UWGT full time.

He volunteers as an Aspen Institute Franklin Project Ambassador - promoting the idea that a “service year” should be a cultural expectation, common opportunity, and civic rite of passage for young Americans between the age 18 and 28 - and as a co-chair of the Nourish International Alumni Committee. He is a 2009 graduate of Elon University and a member of Leadership North Carolina Class XXI.

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