Get to know the 8 finalists for Silicon Prairie Champion and Ambassador

In any community there are individuals who go above and beyond. Those who put in countless extra hours, can always offer up advice with a smile and never seem to stop working to improve things. They’re our community champions and ambassadors—and in the Silicon Prairie, we’ve got some of the best. All of those nominated…


Last year Rahul Gupta took home Silicon Prairie Champion. He is nominated again for the award this year. 

In any community there are individuals who go above and beyond. Those who put in countless extra hours, can always offer up advice with a smile and never seem to stop working to improve things. They’re our community champions and ambassadors—and in the Silicon Prairie, we’ve got some of the best. All of those nominated for Silicon Prairie Champion and Silicon Prairie Ambassador have gone beyond the call of duty to insure the Midwest is a place entrepreneurs can thrive, whether that work is done in or outside of the region.

During the second annual Silicon Prairie Awards, held August 29, two of these eight individuals will be named as the Silicon Prairie Champion and Ambassador. In anticipation of that celebration, we’ve put together overviews of the four contenders for each award category. The finalists—48 in all—are the result of public nominations submitted in July and input from our selection committee earlier this month.

A public vote will help determine the winners of the awards, so cast your ballot for the Silicon Prairie Champion and Silicon Prairie Ambassador below, or visit the awards page to vote on all 12 categories.

Join us for the Silicon Prairie Awards: We have an exciting evening of community celebration planned for August 29 at Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines. Tickets are still available for the event, which includes an opening reception, keynote talk by The Brandery co-founder and Rockfish CMO Dave Knox, awards ceremony and closing party. Purchase your tickets today.

Meet the Silicon Prairie Champion finalists

An individual, company or organization that selflessly gave their time, resources or expertise to advance the Silicon Prairie community. (Descriptions, accomplishments and media appearances provided by each finalist)

 

Brian Ardinger, NMotion (Lincoln, Neb.)

Brian Ardinger is the managing director of NMotion, a startup accelerator in Lincoln, Neb. NMotion brings together capital, connections and community to help early-stage startups move forward faster.

Over the past year—in addition to getting NMotion off the ground—Brian served as an entrepreneur in residence for NUtech Ventures and organized numerous entrepreneurial events like Lincoln’s weekly Open Coffee and Friday afternoon club for startups. He was part of numerous startup committees including Startup Week Lincoln, the Intersect Conference, Lean LaunchPad Workshop and was a regional champion for Startup America. Brian also served as a judge and mentor for a variety of startup events this year, including Startup Weekend, Lincoln’s Healthcare Connect Challenge, HIVE Creative Challenge and the Nebraska Software Builder’s Competition.

Read more on TwitterLinkedIn and SPN.

 

Cameron Cushman, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (Kansas City)

Cameron Cushman is a manager in entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where he focuses his efforts on strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Kansas City region. He leads the Foundation’s efforts on the Big 5 initiative to make Kansas City America’s “Most Entrepreneurial City” and was a co-founder of 1 Million Cups. He is working to help entrepreneurs maximize the impact of the high-speed fiber optic network that Google is installing in Kansas City.

In March he also led a bus of 40 entrepreneurs from Missouri and Kansas to SXSW in Austin. He planned and hosted the Hacking the Gigabit City event in April that brought more than 100 hackers to Kansas City to spend a weekend developing applications that can run on gigabit enabled networks. He also helped plan several events for Global Entrepreneurship Week in November, including the Startup@Kauffman Demo Day that featured 24 startups from throughout the Silicon Prairie.

Read more on Twitter, LinkedIn and SPN

 

Kevin McGinnis, Sprint (Kansas City)

Kevin McGinnis is vice president of product platforms and services at Sprint. He is responsible for developing platforms and product lines across all segments of its wireless and wireline business, for both consumer and enterprise customers. During the last year, Kevin has been the driving force behind much of the corporate involvement in the entrepreneurial community in Kansas City and the region. He was instrumental in orchestrating the Reverse Pitch event during Global Entrepreneurship Week in 2012 and the collaboration between corporations in Kansas City since that event.

Under Kevin’s leadership, Sprint partnered with the University of Missouri–Kansas City to secure the i6 Grant to launch Digital Sandbox KC, a proof-of-concept and mentoring center for high-tech startups. He is an ongoing supporter of the Kauffman Foundation’s 1 Million Cups, Pipeline Entrepreneurs, Silicon Prairie News, Startup Weekend and other initiatives. Kevin has been a leading advocate outside of the region for what’s happening in Kansas City, using his position as a thought leader in the wireless industry.

Read more on Twitter, LinkedIn and SPN

 

Amanda Styron and Andy Stoll, Seed Here (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)

Amanda Styron (top left) and Andy Stoll (bottom left) are founding partners of Seed Here Studio—a media, events and community-building company with the dedicated mission to cultivate the conditions and community that give entrepreneurs the best possible chance to thrive. Andy and Amanda helped launch 1 Million Cups Cedar Rapids/Iowa City and help host the event each week. They launched The Creative Corridor Project, a regional initiative to rally pride and support for innovation in the community—complete with a weekly community newsletter, a weekly profile of an entrepreneur and Iowa’s first Creative Week slated for October of this year.

The pair also owns and helps operate Vault Coworking and Collaboration Space in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In June 2012 they launched the Vault 100 project—an initiative to identify 100 working entrepreneurs, foster 100 events to help entrepreneurs, launch 100 new companies and identify 100 people willing to invest in the region’s startup community. With their help, the Up Global Startup America Summit is slated to bring the biggest names, iconic brands and most networked people in startup communities from across North America to Iowa this October.

Read more about Amanda on her website, Twitter, LinkedIn and SPN.

Read more about Andy on his website, Twitter, LinkedIn and SPN.

Vote



Meet the Silicon Prairie Ambassador finalists

An individual from the region who has moved away but continues to advocate on behalf of the Silicon Prairie community. (Descriptions, accomplishments and media appearances provided by each finalist)

 

Calvin Pappas 

Calvin Pappas is the founder of SelectOut—an online privacy management system—and University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate now at AVG in San Francisco. He was born and raised in Lincoln, Neb., and started his company SelectOut while in school in Lincoln.

In the last year Pappas made introductions between peers and entrepreneurs in the Silicon Prairie to investors and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. He also helped bring attention to Midwest startup companies through his own entrepreneurial efforts. 

Read more on Twitter, LinkedIn and SPN

 

Rahul Gupta

Rahul Gupta is the is the co-founder of the Big Wheel Brigade and a former Omahan. He lived in Omaha from 2004 to 2012, during which time he started three companies. In 2012, he and his family left the area, returning to their home state of California for his wife Sarah’s medical residency.

Since returning to California, he’s organized Silicon Prairie meetups, connected companies in the Bay area to vendors in Omaha and has advocated on behalf of the Silicon Prairie as a strong place to do business, a rich community to be a part of and its generally high quality of life.

Read more on Twitter, LinkedIn and SPN

 

Royce Haynes

Royce Haynes is a hackstar at TechStars in Boulder, Colo. A native Kansan, Royce spent the last few years in Kansas City before moving to Boulder. Royce was active in the Kansas City startup community, including writing for Silicon Prairie News as a contributor, co-organizing and facilitating KC Startup Weekend and giving tech talks at events like Python KC Meetup.

Since moving to Colorado, Royce had the opportunity to welcome the Tech Trek documentary to Techstars Boulder. He’s also provided advice to entrepreneurs, including Kansas City develop shop Galleon Labs and other Silicon Prairie visitors. In general, he’s kept in touch with Kansas City through Startup Weekend, making email introductions and sharing his life experiences.

Read more on Twitter, LinkedIn and SPN

 

Steven Chau

Steven Chau is a Startup Weekend web developer in Seattle and former events chair for the Social Media Club of Kansas City. Born and raised in Missouri, Steven spent five years in Kansas City before relocating to Seattle.

In July 2012, Steven helped introduce Shashi Jain, from the Portland Startup Community, around the Kansas City area. He introduced him to Kansas City entrepreneurs, including Nate Olson, Tina Peterson and Mike Gelphman, and says those introductions expanded in ways “I could not have expected.” During Global Entrepreneurship Week, Kansas City’s was the only story Steven shared when he encountered cities with young startup communities. He shared stories of how Gelphman’s effort grew KCITP into an amazing organization that puts on Hack The Midwest, Compute Midwest and other programs.

Read more on Twitter, LinkedIn and SPN.

Vote



 Thanks to our sponsors


Credits: Photo by Malone & Co.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

Get the latest news and events from Nebraska’s entrepreneurship and innovation community delivered straight to your inbox every Wednesday.