Tag: University of Missouri-Kansas City

Vanessa Mahan and Catherine Pollman, Bionic Bowel, UMKC Regnier Venture Creation Challenge

Two Missouri biology students just wanted an ‘A’ — ultimately they devised a treatment for Crohn’s Disease

By Tommy Felts / July 31, 2019

Launching a biotech company based on a class project took the quest for an ‘A’ to a whole new level for two Missouri University of Science and Technology students — founders of Bionic Bowell.  Prompted by professors to find a use for a special ion-interacting glass compound, Vanessa Mahan and Catherine Pollman devised an ingestible…

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Graham Dodge, Sickweather patent

Sickweather spent 8 years and $100K+ to obtain a patent; Is IP protection worth the cost?

By Tommy Felts / July 16, 2019

Graham Dodge wanted to check a box for investors seeking security for his crowdsourced sickness forecasting startup Sickweather, he said. Obtaining a patent for the technology, however, proved a tougher task to chart.  “We just wanted to protect ourselves to build value in the company,” said Dodge, CEO of Sickweather, as well as Garnish Health,…

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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…

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KCultivator Q&A: Chad Feather ventured to China and back, stayed for KC kindness, community

By Tommy Felts / May 24, 2019

Editor’s note: KCultivators is a lighthearted profile series to highlight people who are meaningfully enriching Kansas City’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The KCultivator Series is sponsored by Plexpod, a progressive coworking platform offering next generation workspace for entrepreneurs, startups, and growth-stage companies of all sizes. Age doesn’t define entrepreneurial talent and Chad Feather is proof, he said…

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Andrea Savage, Salem Habte, Mark Babcock, Alec Rodgers, and Ali Brandolino, UMKC Enactus

UMKC Enactus team kicks open front door to Kansas City innovation scene with final four win

By Tommy Felts / May 24, 2019

As the number of teams left standing in the Enactus U.S. nationals started to dwindle, members of the competitive entrepreneurial development program’s team at the University of Missouri-Kansas City rode a pulsating wave of excitement and emotion, recalled Ali Brandolino. “I started crying,” added Brandolino, UMKC Enactus vice president of operations. “It was the most…

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