With the growth of minority and women business owners in the Commonwealth, it is clear that their needs cannot be overlooked. Minority and women entrepreneurs have increasingly played a critical role in spurring job creation and economic development; however, they continue to face challenges. From accessing capital to breaking into the public marketplace, barriers continue to impede minority and women entrepreneurs from further expanding their enterprises.

The discussion and dialogue that took place at this year's Massachusetts Supplier Diversity Summit brought to light several of these very critical issues for minority and women entrepreneurs. While minority and women business owners continue to face obstacles in their ability to obtain capital, it is clear there are solutions that can address these needs. Legislation should and will be developed to put in to place mechanisms that spur the inclusion of minority and women-owned firms.

A critical need to be met is to continue effort to ensure minority and women businesses access to capital. An additional issue coming out of this year's Summit was the challenges minority and women entrepreneurs face in their ability to access the public marketplace. In fact, the Summit was meant to highlight the opportunities that are available to minority and women businesses and how they might access these opportunities.

The 2010 Massachusetts Supplier Diversity Summit has been a valuable tool in creating access to information on the part of the minority and women business community. It has also been a tremendous forum for creating better understanding on the part of government officials of our continued need to improve the ways we do business to make real the operational motto of the Office of Access and Opportunity: Equity of opportunity is not the enemy of efficiency; it is the promise of democratic governance. And so, the work continues.