Triangle Entrepreneurship Week offers entrepreneurs information and ideas on how to succeed as a startup. 

Events include seminars on women in business, raising money and financial pitfalls. Speakers Dan London, senior manager of marketing at Citrix, Representative Deborah Ross, Gerald Hall, founder and CEO of SportsMEDIA Technology and others will be part of the lecture series.

The five-day program starts Nov. 12 and is held at different locations throughout the Triangle. Each session is individually priced, or you can purchase an all-week pass for $199 (plus an $11.94 fee). 

You can register here. 

Winter is still weeks away, but now is the time to prepare your small business for the upcoming cold weather and cold and flu season. 

The Small Business Administration and Agility Recovery have teamed together to offer tips and advice on keeping your business up and running during the harsh winter months.

"Winter Weather Preparedness" webinar will be held Nov. 13 from 2 p.m.- 3p.m. Go online to register. But hurry. Space is limited.

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Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network, a new support network financed by the private equity giant, has named Robert Creeden to be its first executive director.

Creeden is founder and managing partner of Boston-based Partners Innovation Fund. 

The Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network was announced in April.

It is a partnership between the company and the Triangle's four major universities -- Duke University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- as well as the Council for Entrepreneurial Development.

Financed with $3.6 million from Blackstone's charitable foundation, it is designed to provide entrepreneurs with the support they need to turn their ideas into fast-growing companies.

The Blackstone Group's charitable foundation announced this morning that it is committing $3.6 million to create an entrepreneur network in the Triangle.

Stephen A. Schwarzman, CEO and co-founder of private equity firm, formally announce the five-year initiative at an event in Durham's American Tobacco Campus.

The company hopes the network will become a model for other regions.

The money will be used to create an entrepreneurial support network similar to ones that already exist in Silicon Valley and the Boston area.

Partners in the project include Duke University, N.C. Central, N.C. State and UNC Chapel Hill.

President Barack Obama's Startup America 2011 tour will kick off in Research Triangle Park tomorrow.

The commander-in-chief won't make an appearance, but he will send administration officials such as Ronnie Chatterji of the Council of Economic Advisers and Esther Vassar of the Small Business Administration.

As part of the initiative announced in January, administration officials plan to visit eight cities to hear from small business owners and entrepreneurs about regulations, lending, hiring and more.

One goal is to identify burdensome regulations and other barriers that curb entrepreneurs' efforts to expand startup companies. The main mission is to generate more activity among entrepreneurs and small businesses that will create new jobs and bolster the slowly reviving economy.

Ping Fu continues to reinforce her role as the local entrepreneur who has become a go-to small business resource for the Obama Administration.

The CEO and founder of Geomagic, a 3-D software company based in Research Triangle Park, was among the speakers in Washington today who helped kick off Obama's campaign to increase investment in start-up companies. The appearance follows several visits to Washington last year, including as Michelle Obama's guest at the State of the Union.

The "Startup America" effort involves using $2 billion from the Small Business Administration, with matching funds from private foundations and big technology companies such as IBM and Intel, to provide seed and early-stage investments in firms with high-growth potential.

Fu is a passionate advocate for small businesses and women-led firms in particular. She got a call from White House officials on Saturday night, asking her to be in Washington by this morning and didn't hesitate.

"It's important for entrepreneurs to have a voice in the capital," Fu said. "This is a starting point, but this administration really seems to get it."

Two celebrities on the business-speaker circuit will visit the Triangle next week to offer advice to entrepreneurs on how to build a business in a tough economy.

On Tuesday morning, Warren Brown, former host of "Sugar Rush" on Food Network and founder of the CakeLove chain of bakeries, will speak at N.C. State's McKimmon Conference center in Raleigh on "Are you ready for the rebound?"

It's free, but registration is required. To reserve a seat or for more information, click here.

On Thursday morning, dot-com billionaire and outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team Mark Cuban will speak at the American Tobacco Campus in Durham. That one costs $50 but includes lunch. Register here.

A panel discussion on entrepreneurship and venture capital also will include local executives Aaron Houghton, chairman and co-founder of Durham's iContact; Rich Lee, CEO of Hosted Solutions; and Mitch Mumma, general partner at Intersouth Partners.

Two business incubators and a nonprofit that helps foster entrepreneurs and startup companies plan to set up shop in downtown Durham's American Tobacco Campus.

The Council for Entrepreneurial Development will join LaunchBox Digital and Joystick Labs at the campus. The additions are aimed at turning the successful commercial development project into a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity.

The three organizations will be tenants in the newly named American Underground, a 26,000 square-foot space in the lower levels of American Tobacco's Strickland and Crowe Buildings.

The three groups will take about a third of the American Underground space. American Tobacco will seek to lease the rest at about $19.95 per square foot. That's below the square-foot price of $25.95 that the campus is seeking for 88,000 square feet that GlaxoSmithKline said it will vacate next May.

Ping Fu, the CEO of Geomagic, must have really impressed President Barack Obama.

Fu, who earlier this year was invited to Obama's State of the Union address, has now been appointed to the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

She'll be joined by another Tar Heel, Holden Thorp, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.