North Carolina, First in Equity: Being Healthy Rather Than Seeming So.

To achieve a healthier North Carolina, first we must increase the racial and gender diversity of the state's scalable entrepreneurial pipeline, from both native and in-recruited firms, across all key industries. Then we must increase the scale and diversity of capital available to those racially and gender diverse entrepreneurs and businesses. Next, we must expand the place and space of the state's racial and gender diverse entrepreneurs and businesses-in both the physical and virtual marketplaces-to ensure that they are all taking advantage of our economically expanding state. Finally, we must remove as many barriers-natural and artificial-to success as we can for racial and gender diverse businesses and entrepreneurs. These proactive efforts are not <em>against</em> anyone, but instead are <em>for</em> a healthy and whole state becoming what it should: to be, rather than to seem.