Tag: LaunchCode

Feds award $500K for Goodwill, LaunchCode jobs training effort through STEM Tech Challenge

By Tommy Felts / October 19, 2023

Nearly a half-million dollars in federal funds are expected to help two local programs forge a new STEM-based job training initiative to help Kansas City-region job seekers find permanent high-wage careers in tech. U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas, on Wednesday announced a $499,196 award from the U.S. Department of Commerce to Goodwill MoKan (Goodwill of…

Read More >
Tim Schaffer, AREA Real Estate Advisors; and Basel Bataineh, Somera Road

Downtown innovation district: Developers envision 30-story Lightwell project as its own startup hub

By Tommy Felts / October 2, 2019

It’s possible the Lightwell building’s exterior hasn’t been cleaned since 1977, joked Tim Schaffer as he walked a vine-wrapped rooftop terrace that overlooks downtown Kansas City.  “It was totally unintentional, the way it came together,” Schaffer, president of AREA Real Estate Advisors, said of the multi-million-dollar office redevelopment project that’s quickly evolved into what Schaffer…

Read More >
Carolyne Gakuria, ScheduleMe

Tired of waiting at the barber shop? An AI-infused platform grown at UMKC could trim time

By Tommy Felts / May 28, 2019

Born in the barber’s chair, Kansas City-based ScheduleMe could take more than a little off the top for service-based retailers. The startup plans to use artificial intelligence to groom the haphazard scheduling process entirely, its co-founders said. “We discovered that [our barbershop] was having issues with scheduling. What we wanted to do was try to…

Read More >

$300K Kauffman grant will keep no-cost LaunchCode coding classes in KC another two years

By Tommy Felts / February 22, 2019

Sourced in community building through enhanced access to resources, a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation will allow LaunchCode Kansas City to continue its training program for at least two additional years, the program announced Thursday. “It’s very exciting. We know that it’s, in part, through the vision of the Kauffman Foundation that LaunchCode…

Read More >
Daniel Fogarty, LaunchCode

LaunchCode leader: Your city never stood a chance of landing Amazon’s HQ2

By Tommy Felts / November 27, 2018

[Editor’s note: This guest column first appeared on the Silicon Prairie News tech and entrepreneurship blog. It is republished here with permission from the author, St. Louis-based Daniel Fogarty, vice president of growth at LaunchCode, which operates its workforce development program in Kansas City.] After months of waiting, it’s finally confirmed Amazon will split its…

Read More >
[adinserter block="4"]