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University Of Missouri, Kansas City
|
Location |
Kansas City, MO |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Project Name |
Comeback KC Ventures: SPRINTing to COVID Solutions in the Kansas City Region |
|
|
Award Amount |
Federal Share |
Local Match |
|
$750,000 |
$238,847 |
The University of Missouri will lead the Comeback KC Ventures project, which will unite the Kansas City region’s community-based public health, digital equity and education efforts with the regional technology entrepreneurial ecosystem to support the development of early-stage technology-driven interventions that can respond to these needs.
Kansas City will sprint toward 10 new businesses, 30 new jobs, $5 million in follow-on funding in an 18-month period that will start local and stay local to solve problems that COVID-19 has raised.
This project will be led by the UMKC Innovation Center in partnership with KC Digital Drive, combining the business-building strengths of UMKC IC with the community engagement and discovery processes of KCDD, the project will:
- Uncover COVID-related community needs in education, healthcare and digital equity
- Identify technology-based solutions to those needs
- Create an expanding regiment of Venture Fellows, entrepreneurs that receive needed support to rapidly develop solutions to meet these opportunities
- Connect Venture Fellows with civic and community leaders to align product-market fit
- Provide much-needed, early-stage proof-of-concept support to move ideas toward commercialization in the market
- Place a strong emphasis on developing minority- and women-business owners