Coming UMKC innovation center to serve students, entrepreneurs
May 13, 2015 | Bobby Burch
![NixonPressConf[4]](https://startlandnews.tinythunder.dev/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NixonPressConf4.jpg "NixonPressConf[4]")
With funding shored up from private and public donors, the University of Missouri-Kansas City is planning to move ahead with its plan to build the Robert W. Plaster Free Enterprise Center to support students and entrepreneurs.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon shakes hands with UMKC Chancellor Leo E. Morton. Photo by Janet Rogers/UMKC.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced Tuesday that the state is allocating $7.4 million to the center, which represents half of the funding for the new $14.8 million building that will be built at 215 Volker Boulevard. The Robert W. Plaster Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation offered the initial private funds.
“The Free Enterprise Center at UMKC will provide greater opportunities for creativity and collaboration among students, faculty and businesses, and strengthen the Kansas City region’s position as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship,” Gov. Nixon said in a release.
The prototyping and product development center will serve students, entrepreneurs and the larger business community with a variety of resources, including a lab, rapid prototyping equipment, 3D printers and a business incubator.
“This facility will support education and economic development across the board,” UMKC Chancellor Leo E. Morton said in a release. “It will help entrepreneurs, inventors and small business be more successful in their ventures. And students from middle school to graduate school will get a first-hand taste of entrepreneurship and become grounded in the discipline of innovation.”
Featured Business
2015 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
PrairieFood grows power of its micro-carbon ag solution with a pipeline of human connection
Startland News’ Startup Road Trip series explores innovative and uncommon ideas finding success in rural America and Midwestern startup hubs outside the Kansas City metro. LAWRENCE — Entrepreneurship is all about networking, Robert Herrington said. “You never know where a pivot or direction is going to come from,” said Herrington, an early member of the Pipeline…
C2FO marks $300B in funding for businesses as entrepreneurs navigate ongoing credit crunch
Rapid marketplace expansion in the first half of 2023 helped push Leawood-based C2FO — the world’s on-demand working capital platform — past the $300-billion mark in total funding to its customers. This record funding amount reflects invoices paid an average of 31 days early via C2FO’s platform. C2FO gets vital, low-cost capital into customers’ hands…
Froyo with a ’tini twist: Entrepreneur collaboration serves alcoholic frozen yogurt in KC
Kansas City is excited by the new flavor combinations popping up as two entrepreneurs give customers a taste of collaboration, said Isaac Collins, teasing a line of alcoholic frozen yogurt that’s already hitting cups in the metro. Through a partnership with KC-based Brain Freeze Mobile Daiquiri, Collins’ Yogurtini locations have begun a series of happy…
How Meshuggah Bagels ‘built a bakery without a recipe’ — now expanding to Liberty, Lawrence
Pete Linde tested 72 bagel recipes before hitting perfection with number 73, said Janna Linde. She knows because she tried every single test bagel. “Pete worked on that recipe for about a year. He had a notebook and took notes on every little tweak and modification he made. I’d see the big hand mixer come…