Profiles

Windgo Advantive holoflective gun scope

How a Columbia startup spun smart window tech into a holoflective gun scope that could help prevent accidental shootings

Innovation has no limits for Fielding Staton — and his company’s 250-plus inventions offer just a glimpse into how he and his team hope to shape the future. Among the most recent products to take shape inside the walls of Columbia-manufactured Windgo: a holoflective gun scope with the potential to save lives.  “A lot of gun…

Photo courtesy of ThaButtress

New in KC: How a Twitch powerhouse is building her following (and gunpla) from Kansas City

Editor’s note: New in KC is an ongoing profile series that highlights newly relocated members of the Kansas City startup community, their reasons for a change of scenery, and what they’ve found so far in KC. Click here to read more New in KC profiles. As her career leveled up, a Twitch-personality found herself headed back to Kansas City…

Tiffiney Baumgarden and Jennifer Riley, Crossing Broadway

What began as a T-shirt line now boasts a coast-to-coast marketplace backing women-owned businesses

For women in entrepreneurship, competition can hinder collaboration, Tiffiney Baumgarden said, outlining her mission to judge less and live more.  “I was really sick of the way women were talking to each other — particularly online,” said Baumgarden, founder and CEO of Crossing Broadway, detailing her experience (and that of many other local women she’s encountered,…

KC Girls Preparatory Academy

Liberation through innovation: Why KC Girls Prep focuses on history, culture to empower students 

Striving to create feminist, anti-racist leaders does not come with a checklist, said Tara Haskins — rather it takes creative thinking and the willingness to go beyond established norms.   “To be anti-racist is to first acknowledge history and the stories we tell,” said Haskins, who serves as the founding school leader at KC Girls Preparatory…

Penny Mufuka, Bamboo Penny’s

Bamboo Penny’s plants KC Thai in Leawood, plating culture alongside pineapple fried rice

Fearlessness is on the menu for Chef Penny Mufuka, a 25-year veteran of the stovetop, bringing to boil plans for a second Johnson County-cooked restaurant in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It makes me sweat everyday,” Mufuka laughed, musing the decision she made with husband and co-owner, Doug Mufuka, to open Bamboo Penny’s in…