Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce .

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Big 5: Champion Peter deSilva & One Week KC

Peter deSilva, CEO of UMB Bank and one of the Champions of the Chamber's Big 5 Ideas, gives a progress report on Making Kansas City "America's Most Entrepreneurial City" and previews the One Week KC events.

Next week is a big week for entrepreneurs and wannabee entrepreneurs in Kansas City. Monday kicks off what is being called One Week KC…nine days of meet-ups, conferences, idea exchanges, speakers, parties and workshops to educate, inspire, encourage and celebrate entrepreneurship.

It’s all part of Kansas City’s quest to become America’s Most Entrepreneurial City. You’ve heard that expression before, but whatever happened to that? You may remember it was one of the Big 5 Ideas announced by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce last fall. Did it simply just fade away?

The man leading the Chamber’s Making Kansas City “America’s Most Entrepreneurial City” initiative is Peter de Silva, CEO of UMB Bank, who sat down with Nick Haines to give a progress report.

Graphic giving thanks to Big 5 underwriters Burns & McDonnnell, UMB, Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute and Swope Community Enterprises

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Big 5: Troost Corridor Revitalization

Jim Heeter and Dianne Cleaver discuss the plan for revitalizing the Troost corridor as part of the Chamber's Big 5 Ideas initiative.

For a long time in this city, people have lamented why so little progress, so little improvement and economic development has happened east of Troost Avenue–the symbolic, geographic and racial divide in this city.

Now, the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce has agreed to throw its entire weight and influence towards making big changes. As part of what it calls its Big 5 intitiative, the Chamber has picked the Troost corridor for unprecedented focus and civic attention.

The Urban Neighborhood Initiative is one of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s “Big 5” ideas announced in September 2011, aimed at creating economic opportunity and establishing a more vibrant Kansas City region.

The Urban Neighborhood Initiative seeks to collaborate with an interested East Side low-income neighborhood or area to identify and begin to address issues to improve the opportunities of its residents.

This initial effort will involve two phases of work – planning and implementation. Each phase will engage community-wide stakeholders and residents in a process to collaboratively identify issues and resources that can effect change.

Nick Haines sits down with Dianne Cleaver and Jim Heeter to discuss their plan of attack for the Troost corridor revitalization initiative.

Here’s a look at the focus area for the Urban Neighborhood Initiative:

Graphic giving thanks to Big 5 underwriters Burns & McDonnnell, UMB, Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute and Swope Community Enterprises

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Big 5: Entrepreneurial Brainstorming

As part of the Chamber’s Big 5 initiative, eight public forums are underway to get your views. The Local Show checked in on one of them this week at the Kauffman Foundation.

How can we become America’s most entrepreneurial city? As part of the Chamber’s Big 5 initiative, eight public forums are underway to get your views. We checked in on one of them this week at the Kauffman Foundation.

There are four more sessions just like this one going on in the metro. They are all free, but registration each session is limited to 50 people. For more information and to register, go to kauffman.org/big5conversation. By the way, we will check in with Pete deSilva, the head of UMB Bank who is leading the Chamber’s entrepreneurial Big 5 initiative, to see what they learned once they have them all wrapped up.

The Chamber’s Big 5 initiatives were announced last fall – each designed to create jobs and to raise “Big KC” to the next level. The entrepreneurship initiative is championed by Peter deSilva, chairman and CEO of UMB Bank.

The schedule for next week’s meetings:

Sprint Campus – 6300 building, Overland Park (Park in Lot P)

Monday, Feb. 20 – 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Kauffman Foundation – Conference Center, 4801 Rockhill Road, KCMO

Tuesday, Feb. 21 – 11:15 a.m. – 1:15 p.m.

Cerner – Vision Center, 2850 Rock Creek Parkway, KCMO

Wednesday, Feb. 22 – 11:15 a.m. – 1:15 p.m.

Metropolitan Community College – Mel Aytes Education Center, 500 SW Longview Road, Lee’s Summit

Thursday, Feb. 23 – 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Graphic giving thanks to Big 5 underwriters Burns & McDonnnell, UMB and Swope Community Enterprises

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Big 5 Champion: Leo Morton

Nick Haines welcomes Leo Morton, the Champion for the arts campus initiative, to The Local Show to discuss the progress on this Big 5 idea.

Last year the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce released with great fanfare their 5 big ideas for moving the metro forward. They didn’t want to just talk about 5 ideas. They wanted to make 5 things happen that would make a difference in the metro.

After months of task forces and meetings and shrinking down its list from close to 200 big ideas, they decided to roll up their sleeves and propose relocating the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance to Downtown, develop a strategic plan to improve urban neighborhoods, make Kansas City a nationally recognized center for medical research, hold a world symposium on animal health, and transform Kansas City into “America’s Most Entrepreneurial City.”

Lots of groups come up with bold plans and ideas to improve the city, but do those noble visions just end up gathering dust on a shelf? On KCPT, we’re going to to track the Big 5 to see how these ideas progress.

In one area, momentum is already building. Over the holiday, UMKC was announcing plans to expand its concept of a new downtown arts campus. While initial reports were that UMKC was considering moving just its Conservatory of Music and Dance to a new site, possibly to the now vacant Lyric Theater, the university is now hiring firms to conduct a feasibility study into moving other arts programs such as the Kansas City Repertory Theater, KCUR Radio and the UMKC Theater program. This could potentially bring as many as a thousand students and faculty to a new arts campus downtown.

Nick Haines welcomes Leo Morton, the Champion for the arts campus initiative, to The Local Show to discuss the progress on this big idea.

Graphic giving thanks to Big 5 underwriters Burns & McDonnnell, UMB and Swope Community Enterprises

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