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Kansas Angel Investor Tax Credits

Infographic: Impact of the Kansas Angel Investor Tax Credits

By Tommy Felts / March 8, 2016

Facing a massive budgetary crisis, the State of Kansas may be placing the Kansas Angel Investor Tax Credit program on the chopping block. The popular program — tapped by more than 300 startups in its 11 years — has had a tremendous impact on the area startup community but is scheduled to sunset after 2016. Since…

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Holt: Early-stage capital isn’t Kansas City’s biggest problem

By Tommy Felts / March 8, 2016

Rack your brain and create a list of local tech businesses that have successfully raised early-stage capital in Kansas City. The list is actually quite extensive. Now try to list the tech firms that have raised later stage capital in Kansas City — defined as closing a round of $5 million or more. It’s going…

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Kansas City’s Smart City taking shape with kiosks’ arrival

By Tommy Felts / March 8, 2016

The first physical elements of Kansas City’s Smart City project have sprung up in downtown. On Monday morning, the City of Kansas City, Mo. installed two digital kiosks on the 1300 block of Grand Boulevard. The seven-foot-tall, touchscreen kiosks — only two of 25 total — will provide users details on city services and real-time information…

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student skills gap

Students’ skills gap dings the 21st century workforce

By Tommy Felts / March 4, 2016

Whether openly acknowledged or silently understood, there is a growing awareness in the education community that students are not prepared for the 21st century workforce. Millennials nearly triple the current national unemployment rate and more than half of 2015 college graduates have no — none, zilch, nada — career prospects on the foreseeable horizon.   …

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Regional Roundup

Austin’s ‘hostile attitude’ toward innovation, startup hub trends

By Tommy Felts / March 3, 2016

Here’s this week’s dish on lesson’s learned from Austin’s “hostile attitude” toward innovation, booming non-Silicon Valley startup hubs and what startups can do for the future workforce. Check out more in this series here. AustinInno: Austin just scared off 1 of its ‘biggest supporters’ in Silicon Valley The Austin, Texas City Council’s recent decision to…

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Events Preview: SMCKC gatherings, Lean Lab workshop

By Tommy Felts / March 3, 2016

There are a boatload of entrepreneurial events hosted in Kansas City on a weekly basis. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, investor, supporter or curious Kansas Citian, we’d recommend these upcoming events for you. WEEKLY EVENT PREVIEW SMCKC Breakfast When: March 4 @ 7:30 am – 9:00 am Where: Grand Street Cafe Hear Katie Leas, Online Marketing Manager of…

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PresentR taps the Kinect to boost public-speaking skills

By Tommy Felts / March 3, 2016

A Kansas City startup is plugging into popular gaming technology to improve users’ public speaking skills. Founded by Tim Wikstrom, PresentR taps Microsoft’s Kinect to analyze a presentation, scrutinizing everything from poor posture to counting how many times you say “um.” Founded in 2013, PresentR’s tech evaluates a user’s eye contact, gestures, voice and posture to…

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Niall goes ‘all in’ on new retail location, high-tech pen

By Tommy Felts / March 3, 2016

Well-known in Kansas City for gifting Royals manager Ned Yost a snazzy timepiece, Niall will soon be offering a host of new luxury products — including a high-tech pen — and a new store to feature them. Led by CEO Mike Wilson, Niall on Wednesday announced an expansion of its product line to include a…

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Grant Gooding pitch emotion

Is your pitch getting emotional? Because it should be

By Tommy Felts / March 2, 2016

When it comes to selling your product or service, the devil truly is in the details. Despite what bad salesmen might tell you, people don’t buy based on features or price. Decision making is rooted primarily in the part of our brain that controls emotions. Science shows that regardless of whether we are buying a…

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Cue the palpitations: Bobby’s taking a (free) coding class

By Tommy Felts / March 1, 2016

Only a few weeks in Kansas City, and LaunchCode is already making good on its promise to improve the area’s coding competency with a free, 16-week computer science course. And this mathematically-challenged, technically-inept journalist is going to do his best not to embarrass himself while attempting to learn the science of computing. Open to all…

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