Washington, DC (CapitalWirePR) June 25, 2008 -- Over 200 entrepreneurs and executives will gather at Washington’s Westin Grand Hotel July 21-22 for the nation’s leading minority media and telecom financing event: the MMTC Access to Capital and Telecom Policy Conference.

MMTC Executive Director David Honig explained that “minority entrepreneurs need access to capital, deal flow, and regulatory initiative. To highlight these issues, MMTC will convene entrepreneurs, bankers, private equity firms, brokers, engineers, attorneys and regulators for two days of learning and networking.”

Over 50 speakers and presenters will appear at the conference, including Senator Robert Menendez, former FCC Chairman William Kennard, Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein, Deborah Tate, Michael Copps and Robert McDowell, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies President Ralph Everett, V-me Media Chairman Mario Baeza, Spanish Broadcasting System Chairman Raul Alarcon Jr., Google Public Policy Director Andrew McLaughlin, and many more.

Here are some of the conference highlights:

• A Financing Breakfast with Commissioners Adelstein, McDowell and Copps on lifting barriers to minority media and telecom ownership
• A Minority Ownership Summit, with Commissioner Tate, addressing the FCC’s landmark decision to create twelve new minority ownership initiatives including a ban on racial discrimination in broadcast advertising
• Release of the comprehensive MMTC Road Map on Telecommunications Policy, and discussion of its recommendations by representatives of the presidential campaigns (invited)
• Two afternoons of networking, business planning and transactional training.
  

During the conference, MMTC will recognize leaders and humanitarians who have made extraordinary contributions toward advancing media and telecom diversity, including NABOB Director Jim Winston, ISBA Director Frank Montero, broadcast engineer and visionary Jack Mullaney, and the seven communications attorneys who developed a new FCC rule that fosters minority ownership by opening the seller paper market. MMTC will confer distinguished service awards on the investment firm Syncom and the law firm Covington & Burling. MMTC’s highest honor, the Everett C. Parker Lifetime Achievement Award, will be conferred on Diane Sutter, whose creation, the NABEF Broadcast Leadership Training Program, leads the nation in preparing minorities, women and new entrants to become broadcast owners.

The program is attached, and registration is available at www.mmtconline.org.