Friday, Feb. 1, UMKC officially launched Digital Sandbox KC, a proof-of-concept and mentoring center for high-tech start-ups.
Maria Meyers, the Director of the Innovation Center at UMKC described the sandbox to a packed house at Union Station’s Extreme Screen Theatre, “The digital sandbox will be a place where some of our communities best minds in science technology and business will come to try new ideas… maybe mashing two separate ideas together to make something better. Where ideas will be pitched, analyzed and tested.”
Meyers was joined by Governor Jay Nixon, Kansas City Civic leaders and top executives from KC corporate icons Hallmark, Sprint, UMB Bank, Cerner, VML, RareWire and more to help the launch the new Digital Sandbox KC.
“I am proud that our state has moved on the Kauffman Entrepreneurial Index from 49th in 2008 to 6th this last year,” said Nixon. “The Digital Sandbox is a standing example of what can happen when forward looking organizations public and private come together with big ideas to move our state forward.”
Emerging, existing, and start-up companies can submit technologies around four key focus areas, data center and cloud operations, big data and data analytics, mobile application and data security. Applications will be accepted until midnight March 1.
Entrepreneur Kirk Hasenzahl comments on Digital Sandbox KC:
If you missed the live stream of the presentation, you can watch it here:
