Lean Lab announces new, mature fellowship class
June 18, 2015 | Andrea Essner
The Lean Lab, an education innovation incubator, announced its second cohort of fellows who hope to bring meaningful change to Kansas City education.
In the 2015 class, 10 fellows with seven solutions for Kansas City’s urban education will be participating in the Lean Lab’s summer program.
Fellows arrive at the program with ideas in various stages of development, Lean Lab co-founder Katie Boody said. Boody, a former middle school teacher, identified this year’s cohort as a group with advanced solutions.
“Fellows have been working on their solutions for a little bit longer,” she said. “It’s not just the idea stage.”
Lean Lab fellows participate in a month-long incubator program, which began Tuesday. During the summer program, fellows engage in a process of innovation that involves rapid prototyping and testing of their solutions to a problem in Kansas City education.
This year’s group is taking a closer look at how to help youth in education.
“These are direct initiatives that are impacting students,” Boody said. “They’re already taking on really big problems and I’m really excited to see where they end up.”
An important component of the incubator is building partnerships, Boody said. Fellows receive mentorship from the creative professional in Kansas City, and have the opportunity to pilot ideas at schools or programs once they’ve been refined in the incubator.
Fellows will pitch their solutions at a culminating event, Launch Day, July 17.
Learn more about the Lean Lab with this video from our media partner, Kansas City Public Television:
Featured Business

2015 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Roster filled: 32 Kansas startups march into Round 2 of tourney-style pitch competition
WICHITA — Nearly three dozen Sunflower State startups are vying for $20,000 in prize money — and courting the attention of investors — as they advance to the second round of an innovative, state-backed pitch competition set amid the excitement of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. NXTUS on Tuesday announced the initial 32 companies advancing…
Randy Wasinger wanted the 1952 Topps of NFTs; so the lifelong baseball card collector started coding (and Mark Cuban came calling)
Editor’s note: The following includes excerpts from “The Corporate Couch” podcast as part of a collaboration between host Jeff Pelaccio and Startland News to highlight Web3 companies and founders in the space. The 15-year-old boy within Randy Wasinger — so obsessed with baseball cards that he opened a card shop in downtown Russell, Kansas, to sell…
Kansas legislation banning DeepSeek passes to state Senate after swell of support in House
Editor’s note: This article was written for a class at the University of Kansas’ William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications and distributed through the Kansas Press Association. TOPEKA — A bill seeking to ban DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence chatbot, from state devices has advanced in the Kansas Legislature. HB 2313 passed…
Transportant picked a lane; now the Lenexa bus tech startup wants to conquer even more of the road
From the driver’s seat, Martin Staples is steering Lenexa-based Transportant toward rapid growth with its real-time, tech-driven approach, he said, bringing greater safety, communication, and efficiency to school buses and expanding the startup’s reach beyond its Midwest home region. Fueling Transportant’s plans to leave coast-to-coast tracks — and beyond — will be key, said Staples, who…
