No Coast names finalists for KC’s premier tech champions; winners revealed Sept. 16
August 26, 2020 | Startland News Staff
Inspirational leaders impacting tech aren’t confined to the coasts — nor to a pre- or post-pandemic world, said organizers of the No Coast awards, pushing forward with plans to honor significant contributions to Kansas City’s tech community virtually this fall.
“We all know someone who makes waves everywhere they go — someone who, whether they’re working overtime or having a casual conversation with a coworker, is naturally disrupting, innovating and inspiring change,” said the KC Tech Council, organizer of No Coast, in an announcement of finalists. “As much as we love tech, they achieve something not even the most advanced AI could learn. They encourage people to create positive change.”
Finalists for No Coast’s top honors — Tech Champion of the Year, Tech Connector of the Year, Outstanding Contribution to Tech, and Tech Educator of the Year — were revealed Monday, recognizing a host of contenders from across Kansas City’s tech, government, education and nonprofit scenes.
Blake Miller, Homebase
Ed Lada, president and CEO of Goodwill of Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas, notably picked up finalist positions in two of the four major No Coast categories. Startup leader Blake Miller, CEO of Homebase.ai — a member of the recent T-Mobile Accelerator and one of Startland News’ Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2019 — also is up for consideration.
Click here to see the full list of candidates, bios and award descriptions, or keep reading.
Winners for the categories have already been selected and are expected to be announced Sept. 16 via short videos, said Haley Regan, manager of marketing and communications for the KC Tech Council.
An in-person celebration to mark the second annual No Coast awards fell victim to COVID-19, but KC Tech Council pivoted to a new model for 2020 in hopes of highlighting contributions despite the ongoing pandemic.
Virtual keynote addresses are expected to be released Sept. 15.
Haley Regan, Kara Lowe, and Ryan Weber, KC Tech Council
KC Tech Council also recently launched a new No Coast COVID-19 Community Response category to applaud the community’s resiliency alongside No Coast’s major, recurring awards.
“Once we decided to go completely virtual, we added a category to celebrate companies and individuals that created useful resources to help the community during the pandemic,” Regan said. “There will be no winner chosen for that category, but we will celebrate those nominated with a special shout out in one of the videos.”
Click here to nominate an individual or company for the recognition. Nominations close Friday.
Finalists for No Coasts top awards include:
- Ed Lada — president and CEO of Goodwill of Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas
- Elijah Haahr — speaker of the House, Missouri House of Representatives
- Kathy Busch — chair, Kansas State Board of Education
- Ed Lada — president and CEO of Goodwill of Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas
- Blake Miller — CEO of Homebase.ai
- Dale Werts — partner, Lathrop GPM LLP
Outstanding Contribution to Tech
- Frank Pflumm — Centriq Training
- Jenna Beckett — Centriq Training
- Scott Bromander — Prime Digital Academy
Click here to read more about the 2019 No Coast winners.
Featured Business
2020 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
New Kauffman indicators point to more fertile ground for startups on Missouri side of state line
A new analysis of early-stage entrepreneurship over the past 20 years indicates a more welcoming environment for fostering startups has developed in the Show Me State. In a state-by-state breakdown released Thursday by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Missouri outperformed Kansas across the board. Overall, Missouri’s scores showed climbing measures of entrepreneurship, while Kansas saw…
Friend That Cooks in-home personal chefs bake healthful cooking into families’ diets
Champagne wishes and caviar dreams be damned, Brandon O’Dell quipped. Personal chefs are no longer a luxurious perk of the nation’s one-percent — all thanks to Kansas City-served startup Friend That Cooks. And as the market grows, so too does the repertoire of chefs at O’Dell’s startup, a weekly in-home meal prep service now operating…
Happy Food Co. modifies meal kit options to fit paleo, keto, Whole 30, vegan lifestyles
If a company wants to create change, its leaders have to be unafraid of emerging trends, Jen Trompeter said as Happy Food Co. serves up a strategy that could help the company cook up new business with modified meal kits. “People are doing keto or they’re doing Whole 30,” Trompeter, said. “We have some [meal…
Omega Power Creamer founders turn keto craze into a million-dollar idea
If it weren’t for the failure of a St. Louis tech startup where two friends found themselves working after college, their Kansas City-headquartered company might not exist today, pondered Greg Blome. “It kind of fell through and we were looking at [our idea] … we were trying for a long time to figure out a…