Events Preview: TEDxKC, Powderkeg Pitch Night

There are a plethora of entrepreneurial events hosted in Kansas City on a weekly basis. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, investor, supporter, or curious community member — we recommend these upcoming events for you.

Are you hosting a relevant community event? Feel free to add it to the FWD/KC calendar for increased exposure. Once your event is submitted, it will quickly get reviewed and then published to the calendar.

Fighting Burnout by Working for Free
When: Aug. 14, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Where: Westbrooke Church
Have you ever felt burned out with your job? Have you questioned if you’re even in the right field and if you can keep doing it for much longer, let alone for the many years until retirement? Have you questioned if God even cares about your job and what you do for 9+ hours a day?
Join CrossTech KC for one of our faith talks this month: a fun and inspiring presentation from our very own Ben Barreth, whose counter-cultural journey in the last 12 months took him through career burnout, discovering the Holy Spirit, working for free and finding peace.
Free food as usual, plus our typical networking time before and after.

How to Do Business with the City (Kansas City)
When: Aug. 15, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Where: Human Relations Department, City Hall
Please join City Hall facilitators to discuss how to do business with the City of Kansas City, MO. This workshop is offered the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of every month.

Verge/Powderkeg Pitch Night Kansas City
When: Aug. 15, 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lifted Spirits
Did you hear the news? The community formerly known as Verge is now a new product company—Powderkeg. We are bringing Powderkeg pitch night back to where it all started.
This venue dates back to the 1880’s when it once served as a horse stable. Located in the Crossroads Art District, Lifted Spirits has reinvigorated this area with culture and community.
PITCH NIGHT, SHARK-TANK STYLE
If you’ve never experienced a pitch night, now’s your opportunity to catch 3 of the most exciting companies in the Midwest. Each startup will have just 5 minutes on stage to pitch their startup—no exceptions.

Hidden High Demand Tech Jobs – LaunchCode
When: Aug. 15, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Where: VML Office
There are a number of technical careers that are not direct coding roles — yet benefit from (or require!) coding skills. These roles are often unrecognized or misunderstood, yet offer tremendous technical, growth and career opportunities. Organizations of all sizes struggle to find qualified talent, and that means for those candidates with the right aptitude and skills, there is untapped opportunity!
Might a DevOps role be right for you? Join LaunchCode and VML in learning more about these overlooked opportunities!

LEARN:
* What exactly are these mystery roles?
* What skills are needed for each?
* How do these DevOps roles fit into a Development team?
* What would I actually DO in each of these roles?
* What is the career path — before and after — each of these roles?

You’ll have the chance to sit with members of teams who are in each of these specific roles to educate yourself. They’ll share what they know, and answer all of your questions! This will be an interactive evening, so take advantage and come prepared!

ROLES TO BE DISCUSSED:
* DevOps
* QA
* Security
* Data Science
* Mobile

LaunchCode is partnering with VML for this one-evening educational event. VML is a contemporary marketing agency that also develops technology solutions to move brands forward by inspiring a human connection. VML’s clients include Bridgestone, Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Gatorade, the Kellogg Company, Kimberly-Clark, Microsoft, Motorola, NAPA AUTO PARTS, PepsiCo, Sprint, Tennessee Tourism, Tropicana, U.S. Soccer, Virgin Active, Wendy’s and Xerox.

Coworking Wednesdays 2017
When: Aug. 16, 10:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Where: Sprint Accelerator
You’re probably already out (attending 1 Million Cups) – why go back to your usual office? Or maybe you haven’t found a good way to dip into the KC startup scene and need to shake things up! Spend the day with your extended network and meet some awesome new people working from the Sprint Accelerator and ECJC. Keep the conversations going, learn something new with our added content and get your work done in the process! Social: @SprintAccel #powerofKC | @ECJC_KS | #CoworkingWeds Content: This year, we will have even more speaker content thanks to the ECJC’s Marketing Series! The days with a featured topic and speaker are linked to that specific Eventbrite page, so please sign up there for the topics that interest you! Open coworking goes from 10 AM to 4:30 PM every Wednesday and is FREE, but the content is a minimal fee and kicks off at 11:00 AM on those respective Coworking Wednesdays.

The Marketing Series: UX
When: Aug. 16, 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Where: Sprint Accelerator
The Marketing Series takes an in-depth look at the science and analytics behind marketing campaigns–from the basics of growth hacking to ins-and-outs of content marketing.

Summer in the Sand Series: Getting a Tech Spec
When: Aug. 16, 2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Where:  Sprint Accelerator
Break out your calendar! You do not want to miss this year’s Summer in the Sand series.
“Every year, Summer in the Sand offers opportunities for entrepreneurs to network with each other and learn from some of the best in the industry,” said Jeff Shackelford, director of the Digital Sandbox KC. “We tailor the content to the needs of the startups we are working with and what we see as the hot topics in the community.”
This year’s edition of Summer in the Sand features:

• June 14: How to Pitch to the Sandbox
• July 12: From Startup to Scale Up
• August 16: Getting a Tech Spec
• September 13: Regional Funding for Early-Stage Companies

All sessions run from 2:30-4:00 p.m. and are held in conjunction with “CoWorking Wednesdays” at the Sprint Accelerator, a partner of Digital Sandbox KC.

KC Roundtable Breakfast
When: Aug. 17, 7:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
Where: Eggtc
KC Roundtable is in existence to provide 20 and 30-something Kansas City entrepreneurs with a group of peers to support and collaborate on each others’ businesses. Our mission is to: – Focus on relationship building; not lead generating – Facilitate collaboration, openness, transparency, learning and teaching – Establish an entrepreneurial network – Fill the void of not having the water cooler.
We meet for breakfast and various locations around the city. In addition to our morning meetings, KC Roundtable provides additional opportunities to network with young entrepreneurs such as events like small group Mastermind sessions & After Hour events.
Prospective members are self-motivated, curious, open to learning and currently starting a new business. Thanks for checking us out. We look forward to meeting you soon!

The Sales Series: Making a Case for Your Company with Jeff Shackelford, Digital Sandbox
When: Aug. 17, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Where: Enterprise Center in Johnson County
The Sales Series teaches entrepreneurs the basics of building scalable sales systems, attracting and compensating top-performing sales staff and customer retention.

Third Thursday KCedu and Lean Lab Happy Hour
When: Aug. 17, 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Where: EduHub
Join #KCedu and the Lean Lab at EduHub, a co-working space for education and youth-related startups. Network with genius educators, business partners, and other interested folks as you eat and drink, learn and collide!
When you arrive, grab a snack and check out the whiteboard where participants create the schedule on the fly! Want to share something? Want to get feedback from others on a topic? In addition to the featured guests, as an attendee, you can throw your idea up in one of the squares for small group breakout conversations. For example:
Want to talk about technology in education, apps, gamificatoin or how to make it relevant to kids?
Want to talk family-community engagement in schools and in KC?
Want to plan a city-wide project to bring KC together, led by kids?
Looking for some interested parties to co-write a grant? EdHub has several offices for us to spread out and share/discuss.
After introductions of any featured guests at 6pm, we go into an Edcamp/Unconference format in two fast-paced, 20 minute breakout sessions. Stay in one group or sample more than one discussion. We come back together as a group at 7:00 for final announcements and then continue conversations at EduHub or at a nearby establishment.
This format is about active small group networking and relationship building, not passive listening. CHOICE and VOICE! You’ll be happy you plugged into KC’s vibrant educator network.

TEDxKC watch party
When: Aug. 18, 6:00 p.m.
Where: multiple locations
TEDxKC will be partnering with several locations around town to host TEDxKC watch parties. Tickets include a TEDxKC t-shirt, TEDxKC eclipse glasses, refreshments and a live simulcast of TEDxKC. Join a few hundred TED enthusiasts for the fun.

Ongoing events

Don’t miss out on the events that happen every week at the same time, in the same place.

Code for KC Hack Night
Mondays from 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at Sprint Accelerator

Hammerspace Open House
Thursdays from 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. at Hammerspace

1 Million Cups
Wednesdays from 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. at Kauffman Foundation, Lawrence and KC Live Stream

Looking ahead

Business Law for Entrepreneurs
When: Aug. 21, 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Where: Blue Hills Business Center
Most business decisions have a legal consequence. Understanding where the laws apply to your business operations can help you make confident decisions, protect your rights, minimize risk and save money. Join us for an overview of business law hot topics, including choice of entity, managing contractual obligations, protecting intellectual property, and compliance with employment law.
This workshop will be taught by SEED Law Managing Partner Adrienne Haynes and is hosted in partnership with KCBizCare & the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City.

Managing a Remote Development Team with Kunjan Shah
When: Aug. 23, 11:00 a.m. — 12:30 p.m.
Where: Village Square
The Founder Series addresses legal and operational issues commonly faced by startup founders, from the process of finding and working with co-founders to strategies to protect your intellectual property.
This ECJC workshop series is presented in partnership with Village Square, Located in the heart of the Kansas City Startup Village, Village Square is a coworking space that offers entrepreneurs and startups a place to call home.

SBIR with Sally Williams
When: Aug. 24, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Where: Enterprise Center in Johnson County
The Capital Series is offered for investors and entrepreneurs, allowing for detailed discussions of the due diligence process, term sheets, valuations and investor pitches during the equity investment process, as well as discussion of possible sources of debt financing.
The 2017 Capital Series is offered through a partnership between the Mid-America Angels investment network and the Women’s Capital Connection.
(Lunch will be provided)