Austin Barnes
Recent Articles by Austin Barnes
What does startup community success look like? Often one hears buzzwords like “vibrant,” “supportive” and “close-knit” — standards by which nearly any community can label itself successful. But since it’s nearly impossible to objectively measure those terms, a startup community’s success is instead frequently evaluated through funding and exits. That ignores the fact that most…
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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 Second Fridays When: June 10 @ 4:30 pm – 7:00 pm Where: Village Square Coworking Studio We’ll provide games & cards.…
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A local coding school on Thursday released a new mobile application to enable ridership on Kansas City’s popular new streetcar line. The Disruption Institute developed the “StreetcarKC” app, which helps passengers find stops along the 2.2-mile streetcar line, discover locales along the route and access schedule information. Now available only on iOS devices, the app…
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Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone. A few weeks ago, several of my fellow educators and I toured five innovative Bay Area schools. Being in the heart of Silicon Valley, it’s no surprise that educators there understand the importance of finding new ways to engage and educate kids in…
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Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone. Artificial intelligence has a lot of misconceptions. The first images that come to mind are the dystopian classics: Hal locking Dave out of the airlock, terminators shooting machine guns into a crowd, or (one of my favorites) V’ger taking pot-shots at the Federation.…
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Whether observing a colorful sunset or a sea of humanity in downtown, has Kansas City ever left you speechless? Well — in those trying times of need — one Kansas City firm is helping residents express themselves when words simply will not suffice. [pullquote]“One of the most evident things that I’ve noticed is that people in…
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A new program at area construction giant Black & Veatch hopes to hatch and accelerate innovative ideas by adopting a concept common among startups. The Overland Park-based corporation recently created the B&V Growth Accelerator, which hopes to challenge the global firm’s traditional methods of generating and launching ideas. The internal program is led by nine…
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Late in 2015 and without much fanfare, the U.S. Census Bureau released its 2012 Survey of Business Owners. The survey is taken every five years and polls more than 1.75 million enterprises, gathering, compiling and releasing the results in a process spanning several years. The survey is the only regularly-collected source of economic and demographic…
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Area residents will ride to the airport on automated shuttles by 2020 if Kansas City officials have their way. In a note to the American Planning Association, Kansas City chief innovation officer Bob Bennett shared the city’s “three pillars” of its bid for a $50 million transportation award. The note details Kansas City’s pitch for…
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Tech startups often get a bad wrap for churning out impractical gizmos. It’s not hard to see why when a search of the app store turns up hundreds of applications that all turn on your phone’s flashlight, and even more knockoffs of a popular angry, bird-bombing game. To put techie minds to a more magnanimous…
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