By Cole Hatcher
Throughout her career, Dawn Dickson has raised more than $6 million from 10,000 investors to support her entrepreneurial ventures. She also is considered a pioneer in equity crowdfunding as the first woman business founder to raise a secure token offering of over $1 million using equity crowdfunding.
The founder and CEO of Columbus, Ohio-based PopCom Inc., Dickson will discuss her experiences as a serial entrepreneur and inventor when she presents Ohio Wesleyan University’s 2022-2023 Robert L. Milligan Leaders in Business Lecture. The free event will be held at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 4 in the Benes Rooms inside Hamilton-Williams Campus Center, 40 Rowland Ave., Delaware.
Dickson has more than 20 years of experience in technology, marketing, and business development. Through PopCom, she has built an automated retail technology platform for vending machines and kiosks that allows retailers to engage and understand customers, sell more products, and learn from big data. In 2020, she earned a design patent for her invention of the PopShop Digital pop-up shop, a vending machine that leverages facial recognition and machine learning technology to capture customer data and insights.
During her career, Dickson has received numerous awards and accolades including being recognized on the inaugural Forbes Next 1000 List, listed among INC Magazine’s 100 top Female Founders, being named the 2020 OBWS Black Entrepreneur of the Year presented by Snapchat, and being honored as one of the National Urban League Young Professionals “Heroes in the Movement.”
In addition, she has been featured in media outlets including Black Enterprise magazine, Fortune, Fast Company, Venture Beat, Huff Post, and Essence Magazine. In recognition of her expertise and accomplishments, Dickson also was invited to testify before a Congressional Committee on Small Business in March 2020 as one of the nation’s top retail tech entrepreneurs.
Learn more about PopCom and Dickson at www.popcom.shop.
Ohio Wesleyan’s Milligan Leaders in Business Lecture Series was created in 1992 with an endowment gift from Robert L. “Bill” Milligan, OWU Class of 1922, and his wife, Mary Cook Milligan, 2002 honorary alumna, both deceased. The annual lecture is organized by The Woltemade Center for Economics, Business and Entrepreneurship, which works to enhance teaching, learning, research, and community service at the university. Learn more about the center and its mission at owu.edu/woltemade.
