Government

Mayor’s Office delivers #KC5stars campaign to woo Amazon HQ2

By Tommy Felts / October 11, 2017

The request for proposal can wait. Kansas City Mayor Sly James is delivering Amazon 1,000 reasons to build its second headquarters in the City of Fountains via a host of product reviews on the online retailer’s site. A label maker, flashlight and fishing net were among the items James reviewed to promote various aspects of…

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Smart City

Smart city leader: Can technology predict deadly shooters before it’s too late?

By Tommy Felts / October 4, 2017

A smart city is a safe city, Herb Sih said. And technology can help. “If you don’t have safety, you don’t have anything,” said Sih, managing partner at Think Big Partners, one of the key collaborators in Kansas City’s $15.7 million public-private Smart City initiative. Having grown up in St. Louis, Sih said he has…

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Hyperloop

Looping back? Missouri partners with Hyperloop to study 23-minute KC-St Louis route

By Tommy Felts / October 3, 2017

Missouri’s prospects for landing a Hyperloop route apparently aren’t off the rails after all. Despite the company revealing four U.S. finalist routes in September — which did not include a proposed route through the Show Me State – Hyperloop One announced Tuesday it has entered into a public-private partnership with the State of Missouri to conduct…

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Immigration debate could stall Moran’s revived Startup Act, again

By Tommy Felts / September 29, 2017

Federal legislation geared toward boosting entrepreneurship would make it easier for foreign-born innovators to obtain permanent resident status in the United States. “The newly-introduced Startup Act promotes public policies that would change our KC startup community for the better,” said Melissa Roberts, vice president of communications and outreach for Enterprise Center of Johnson County, which…

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Dave Alburty, CEO of InnovaPrep

Pipeline alum set to ‘save the world’ through $1M US Army biotech contract

By Tommy Felts / September 28, 2017

The U.S. Army recently awarded a Missouri biotech startup a $1 million contract for 24 months. Based in Drexel, Missouri, about an hour south of Kansas City, InnovaPrep was selected out of hundreds of proposals for the Department of Defense’s 2016 Rapid Innovation Fund. The contract is expected to advance development of the U.S. Army…

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