Listen to Startland’s bonkers SXSW experience
March 16, 2016 | Bobby Burch
Virtual reality, smart cities and a whole lot of habaneros.
There was more to Startland’s adventure to Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest — but those three items were certainly some memorable highlights.
The Startland team spent five nights in Austin, taking in the insanity that is SXSW. We saw a ton of incredible technology — virtual reality, holograms and touch-screen projectors to name some — and enjoyed many inspiring conversations about the future.
An array of Kansas City firms and startup founders ventured to SXSW as well, many with whom Startland cultivated better friendships. Kansas City more than held its own at the conference and it was a privilege to see.
KCUR’s Up To Date recently hosted Startland editor-in-chief Bobby Burch to discuss the journey down south, including how Kansas City was represented, cool tech he saw and some emerging trends.
We’ll have more in the coming days on the experience, but in the meantime enjoy the audio below. Special thanks to KCUR for sharing its content. If you have questions about the conference, ask in the comments below and he’ll try his best to respond in an upcoming piece.
Featured Business

2016 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
KC favorites eye World Cup: How to become ‘the spot’ for visitors without losing KC flavor
Even a visitor can become a repeat customer, said Dulcinea Herrera, stressing the importance of Kansas City businesses making their establishments a destination — not just a one-time stopover or accidental find — for international fans and other out-of-town guests when the FIFA World Cup arrives next summer. The goal: Win them over with intentional…
Meet LaunchKC’s winners: $60K prize today; world headquarters in KC tomorrow
Every iconic company headquartered in Kansas City — from Helzberg Diamonds to Hallmark — started with an entrepreneur hoping to scale a small idea into big impact, said Jim Erickson, teasing a next wave of emerging startups and the latest winners of the LaunchKC grants competition. Eight early-stage companies were announced Monday as recipients of…
Tesseract pairs one-button robotic badge with real-time, multi-industry workforce tracking
A new site management platform — complete with wearable robots designed to automatically document work as it happens — is expected to help construction, infrastructure, and military teams gain real-time clarity across their projects and workforce, said John Boucard. “Instead of relying on spreadsheets, manual reporting, or guesswork, leaders now have continuous visual and sensor…
LISTEN: KoraLabs connects AI to the field, helping agtech grow a more sustainable future
On this episode of our 12-part Plug and Play Topeka podcast series, we speak with Luca Corinzia of KoraLabs — an agtech pioneer based in Switzerland that’s bridging the gap between scattered farm data and actionable insights. KoraLabs’ AI-driven “digital twin” platform integrates field data, satellite imagery, soil and weather models to help agronomists and…
