“Developed in 2013 by eMerging Entrepreneurs, Inc. Founder & Executive Director T.J. Breeden (with support from New Century Planning and the Morgan Foundation of North Carolina) as a way of broadening the organization’s partnership opportunities, The Champions Leadership Conference (or ChampsCon™) aims to bring together the nation’s top service leaders, entrepreneurs,  advocates, influencers, researchers, and resources within the public & private sectors to develop and strategically enact initiatives designed to combat the disparities that exists within our communities.  In 2012, T.J. received the White House’s “Champions of Change” award for his leadership in helping veterans transition through entrepreneurship, which prompted his desire to create a platform to collaborate with other service-providers as a way of growing the organization’s capacity to make an impact!  The goal of these types of gathering is to advance intellectual discussions that will spearhead collaboration, influence, and research.  Our first multi-day convening for example (held on January 31st, 2014 in Washington, DC) focused specifically on exploring the connections between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and veteran’s socio-economic issues; through which we hope to make meaningful strides in identifying solutions and resources that will aid in lowering suicides, unemployment, and homelessness. Like our military gatherings, all other conferences and speaker series extends access to the combined wealth of knowledge of leaders of innovation, business, entrepreneurship, social development, health & wellness, technology, education, community development, and intellectual affluence, to create opportunities for us to come together in support of communities in need.”