LaunchKC, Google Fiber, entrepreneurs take stage at White House
Kansas City Mayor Sly James at the White House
In a special White House Press Briefing on Jan. 21, Kansas City Mayor Sly James cited entrepreneurship and a startup community that grew as a result of the metro’s access to Google Fiber.
Joining mayors from Boston and Fresno, Calif., for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, James stood at a White House podium on Thursday, touting the gigabit service, LaunchKC, Techweek Kansas City and the Kansas City Startup Village, as examples of innovation in the heartland.
“We have a tremendously active entrepreneurial population with a lot of startups,” Mayor James told the White House press audience.
The Mayor shared with the press that Kansas City drew an impressive turnout to its inaugural Techweek conference in 2015. Techweek came to Kansas City in September, hosting dozens of tech related events, including networking meetups, lectures, parties and more. After a strong showing in Kansas City, it committed to coming back to the area for five more years.
The mayor touted the success of LaunchKC, a grant competition in which the city and other organizations awarded 10 firms $50,000 each.
LaunchKC, a pillar in Mayor James’ economic development platform for the City of Kansas City, took flight just three months ago over the local tech scene. That was the day that LaunchKC selected its first, annual class of 10 grant recipients who are sharing $500,000, along with a leg up in building their businesses dreams in Kansas City. The selections came during the inaugural Techweek Kansas City conference on Sept. 18 at Union Station.
LaunchKC is a global grants competition for tech entrepreneurs, and serves as a civic engine in the KC tech scene. It is an initiative of the Downtown Council, working in collaboration with the Economic Development Corporation. LaunchKC was established in 2014 with a vision of fueling the local technology space for the five years.
“We surprised Techweek,” the Mayor said. “They brought Techweek in on kind of an experimental basis expecting 1,500 people. 4,000 showed up. And during the time of Techweek, we had LaunchKC that we use and we gave away $500,000 in $50,000 blocks to 10 selected entrepreneurial enterprises which have now grown and are getting secondary and third level funding.”
