IOWA

The deadline for the Iowa Small Business Champion Awards has been extended to Feb. 20, the SBA’s Iowa District Office announced. Corridor Business Journal

The Business Record has launched a new weekly innovationIOWA e-newsletter that will arrive in your inbox each Thursday. In addition, the BR launched a new companion website, innovationia.com, which will house innovation coverage. Des Moines Business Record

After feeling dissatisfied with the state of politics last year, 36-year-old Courtney Clarke decided it was time for her to step up and run for the Waukee City Council. Des Moines Register 

Emily Meyer loves old things. Big old things, like buildings. And as owner of New Leaf Redevelopment Consulting, which she started in 2015, Meyer now gets to work as a consultant helping others navigate the complicated tasks related to restoring historically significant properties. Cedar Rapids Gazette 

British home decorating guru Annie Sloan would have to look far and wide to find a better example of her shop local/have fun philosophy than RePurpose It in downtown Washington. Run by Main Street Washington board member Leslie Allender, the hobby-turned-business is an add-on to Carson Plumbing & Heating, and one of the few shops in eastern Iowa stocking Sloan’s line of hot-selling chalk paints. Corridor Business Journal 

NATION

Women with disabilities have an especially difficult time getting funding to launch businesses, and they struggle with barriers to entry beyond what other women face. The University of Illinois at Chicago created a program, Chicagoland Entrepreneurship Education for People with Disabilities, to educate the public and those with disabilities on ways to correct this, including improving access to mentors. Forbes

Nearly everything about Tracy Chou made it “inevitable” that she would work in software, she told Jeffrey Goldberg in a recent episode of “The Atlantic Interview.” “Minus my gender.” The Atlantic