This North Kansas City hub will be base camp for GEWKC 2022; Deadline for event applications nears
August 11, 2022 | Startland News Staff
KCSourceLink announced this week that Global Entrepreneurship Week-Kansas City, the metro’s largest celebration of entrepreneurship, has a new base camp for its 15th year. The Nov. 14-20 weeklong event series is setting its main events at iWerx in North Kansas City.
Popular nearby businesses like Restless Spirits, Cinder Block Brewery and Chicken N Pickle will provide additional GEW event locations.
“From Midtown in Kansas City, Missouri, to 18th and Vine, we locate our GEWKC base camps in vibrant communities with strong entrepreneurial energy, and we’ve seen North Kansas City really take off as a hub for entrepreneurship and innovation in the past 10 years,” said Michael Carmona, senior director of KCSourceLink. “We’re excited to spur new ideas, make new connections and spark the next innovations in a place where that enterprising spirit is thriving.”
Click here to learn more about Carmona, who began leading KCSourceLink this spring.
KCSourceLink organizes GEWKC each year, with input from the community and sessions crowdsourced from entrepreneurs, service providers, policymakers and champions of entrepreneurship.
“The small businesses that have set up shop here have defined our character and made North Kansas City a destination for entertainment, culture and community,” said Adam Roberts, serial entrepreneur, owner of Screenland Armour Theatre and North Kansas City councilmember. “We hope to foster some of that entrepreneurial energy at GEWKC, as entrepreneurs and their champions connect to learn more about how to start, grow and accelerate businesses.”
iWerx in North Kansas City will serve as the base camp, where the key GEWKC sessions will be organized. iWerx is the first business incubator in North Kansas City and houses and nurtures startups and post-revenue small businesses. It offers space for coworking and events.
iWerx is an entrepreneurial development center. A mission-based group of shared work spaces and co-working facilities, its aim is to help businesses grow by plugging into community and through collaboration. All iWerx facilities are fed by a 10-gigabit broadband backbone supporting innovative efforts of more than 100 businesses at any given time.
“The iWerx team is excited to be the base camp for GEWKC 2022,” said Bob Martin, founding partner of the iWerx family of coworking and enterprise development facilities. “As a business with a mission to edify and assist entrepreneurs and their endeavors every day, we relish the opportunity to celebrate their accomplishments during Global Entrepreneurship Week. Since our inception seven years ago, we have been an active supporter and contributor to this worldwide event. We look forward to welcoming the Kansas City entrepreneurial community to iWerx in November.”
Past base camps have been held in the 18th and Vine District in Kansas City, Missouri, and in the city’s Midtown neighborhood, two other thriving entrepreneurial hubs that have been historic hotbeds of arts, community and culture.
The other locations near iWerx — Restless Spirits, Cinder Block Brewery and Chicken N Pickle, the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business of the Year — are expected to help showcase momentum in North Kansas City.
Global Entrepreneurship Week is an international celebration of the dreamers, innovators and job creators who launch startups, bring ideas to life and advance entrepreneurship. Founded in Kansas City by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2008, the event has since expanded to more than 170 countries. The event, organized each year by KCSourceLink, is driven by the input of the community and features crowdsourced sessions from entrepreneurs, policymakers, small-business advocates and anyone else who is interested in entrepreneurship.
GEWKC sessions will fit into five tracks, created by the planning committee in response to past attendee requests:
- Makers, Artists and Creators
- Startups
- Scalers
- Inclusive Community Builders
- Youthpreneurs
For those who want to host a session, GEWKC is accepting submissions until 11:59 p.m. Aug. 28. Sessions can include individual speakers, presenters, headliners, panels, workshops, competitions and more.
Click here to submit an event idea for GEWKC.
GEWKC is accepting submissions for in-person, hybrid and online sessions. Attendees will be able to build their agendas and register in October. GEWKC is 100-percent free and open to anyone.
Click here to register for the Aug. 12 “How to Prep Your Session for GEWKC” workshop.
Featured Business
2022 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
KC startup founder pivots into pickleball haters’ biggest complaint, eliminating court noise
SLN/CR is serving the sweet sound of silence to neighbors of outdoor pickleball courts, said Eliot Arnold, a serial entrepreneur-turned avid pickleball player who’s taking a swing at the source of critics’ irritation. His Kansas City-based startup — pronounced “silencer” — offers a fabric-based noise mitigation system that uses nanotechnology to absorb nuisance noise, said…
Kansas student’s mobility tech for visually impaired users wins Congressional App Challenge
An Overland Park eighth grader’s app idea — using object detection and text-to-speech technology to help visually impaired individuals navigate their surroundings — earned him a visit to the principal’s office, then an opportunity to showcase his innovation in Washington, D.C. “I actually came across a video online, and it was about this blind woman…
Chatterbox speaks the language of reluctant learners: games featuring global cast of AI tutors
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. WICHITA — A Kansas-built language-learning app takes a gamified approach to fluency — inspired by travel and the simple joys of players feel when competing in traditional board games, said…
Hella Good lunar launch party celebrates KC’s rising Asian culture, bringing ancestors to the night market
Béty Lê Shackelford hopes Hella Good Deeds — the nonprofit sister organization of the popular Vietnamese coffee shop Cafe Cà Phê — makes members of Kansas City’s Asian community feel held and hugged, she said. “Hella Good Deeds is here; we love you; and we’re really open to collaboration,” explained the founder and executive director…