Wow! Good news for Female Founders! The Women Startup Competition selected Sacramento as the first U.S. city to participate in their annual competition which launched in Budapest in 2012. Women founders are invited to participate in the May 5-6 2-day bootcamp at Impact Venture Capital and then the top 10 will pitch at the Impact Global Venture Summit on May 8. Apply to participate through May 3. The winner of the Sacramento semi-finals will be invited to join finalists from cities from around the world for the 5th Annual Final Competition in London in September.

Small Business Week is here and the calendar is overflowing! I’ve highlighted a couple in my Best Bets but click through Small Business Week and the Small Business Festival for a full listing.

This Week’s Best Bets
Tuesday morning, my money’s on Niche Craft: Where the Money Is. How To Get It and Keep It. Speakers include Mark Haney, serial entrepreneur and investor, John Kunhart, co-founder of American River Ventures, and Clayton Porscha, Chief Growth Officer at Valley Extends. This FREE event is in Rocklin from 9:00 a.m. to noon at the Placer Business Resource Center. RSVP here.

Tuesday afternoon, BizX is back with Marketing Like a Boss. Speakers include Tina Reynolds, CEO Uptown Studios, Rich Foreman, CEO  of Apptology, Gina Lujan, Founding CEO of Hacker Lab, and John Davidson, Head of Partnerships, eSports and Influencer Marketing for GameStop. It’s all happening at the Crocker Art Museum from 2:00-4:30 pm. And make time for the After Party! Get your tickets.

Plan Ahead
Early Bird tickets for the May 8 Impact Global Venture Summit are still available! PLUS you can still get 75% off the admission price of $100 with code “startupdigest.” That’s just $25! Delay no further — this will be the biggest event for startups in our region this year! Some of the reasons you should attend include meeting investors, checking out the startup exhibit area, participating in Epic Office hours, learning about innovation and policy (and more!)  Get your ticket here.

Startup Grind’s May 15 event  at The Urban Hive features Kimberly Cargile who recently co-founded Khemia Manufacturing, a cannabis manufacturing accelerator in Sacramento. Enter “digest” in the promo code field and save $5. Get your tickets here.

It’s Startup Graduation Season! 
Attend these events and meet the new startups on the block!
May 9  Sacramento Entrepreneurship Academy’s 27th Annual Showcase
May 10  Hacker Lab’s Startup Hustle Demo Night (free)
May 24 UC Davis Big Bang! Finalist Presentations and Awards (free)

There’s lots of great stuff going on in the tech startup community–check out the details in this week’s Startup Digest. If you’d like to receive the digest in your inbox every Monday morning, sign up for free here. If you’ve organized (or know about) an event we have not included, please submit it here for consideration. And for even more startup information, happenings and resources, visit the StartupSac Website.  Note: We include a lot of tech events that aren’t necessarily startup-focused on the event calendar on the StartupSac website. Check it out here.