Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Christian Renaud, Andy Stoll and Amanda Styron.
Christian Renaud is the CEO of Present.io, as well as a Mentor-in-residence at StartupCity Des Moines, central Iowa’s technology startup incubator.
Andy Stoll is a social entrepreneur, media producer and founding partner at Seed Here, a social good startup working to grow the grassroots entrepreneurial and creative communities in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City region. Andy attended the Startup America Partnership Regional Leaders Summit in Nashville in October, as a representative of the Silicon Prairie.
Amanda Styron is a community-builder and founding partner at Seed Here, and she attended the the Startup America Partnership Regional Leaders Summit in Nashville in October, as a representative of the Silicon Prairie.
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(Photos courtesy of Renaud, Stoll and Styron)
Since the “Scott Case Challenge” was posted on Silicon Prairie News in early November, there have been a number of notable press mentions and challenge updates. Screenshots from respective websites.
Editor’s Note: For the initial challenge post, see: “Guest Post: Answering Scott Case’s challenge to the Silicon Prairie“.
As we watched the highly-anticipated Iowa-Nebraska and Kansas-Missouri football games this past weekend, it was evident that the Silicon Prairie is passionate about friendly state-vs-state rivalries.
In the same spirit of neighborly competition, we have an update on the Scott Case Challenge to the Silicon Prairie as we wrote about a few weeks ago.
The Goal: Register more Silicon Prairie-based startups with The Startup America Partnership than are registered in California.
Before we get an update on the numbers, there’s been a few plot twists in recent weeks.
Initiated by the White House but operated as an independent, private-sector entity, the Startup America Partnership is dedicated to growing more resources for entrepreneurs in the areas of expertise, support services, talent, customers and capital. Led by entrepreneurs and a startup themselves, the Partnership recently announced a few changes to their programs, including a name change to their primary offering to entrepreneurs, now called the Startup Growth Kit. Read more in “Time For A Pivot” on the Partnership’s blog.
Shortly after we announced the Scott Case Challenge to the Silicon Prairie on Silicon Prairie News, Molly Oehmichen, editor-in-chief of Silicon Bayou News, which covers the entrepreneurial and creative community of Louisiana, tossed the Silicon Bayou into the competition. Louisiana is home to some good friends of the Silicon Prairie, having sent participants and speakers to Big Omaha and Thinc Iowa. We welcome them to the competition and wish them luck.
Then, late last week, our little competition garnered national press on Inc.com. In an article entitled “Is This the End of Silicon Valley?” reporter Eric Markowitz highlighted the work of The Startup America Partnership and specifically mentioned the Scott Case challenge to the Silicon Prairie.
The Startup America Partnership and the Scott Case challenge have the same aim that Silicon Prairie News has so boldly been championing for the last four years: to identify, highlight and encourage the entrepreneurs and startups that are building high-growth companies from the ground up right here in the Midwest.
With all of the exciting things going on in our region, let’s share with the good people of California, Louisiana and the rest of the country all the great companies that we have growing in the Prairie.
If you haven’t already, please register your startup today to unlock current and future benefits. The process takes about 15 minutes and is free. Let’s take California.
Here’s how the competition numbers stand as of today:
The Startup America Partnership’s “Success Kit” has been chaged to the “Growth Kit” and can found at startupamericapartnership.com.
In a November 16 video posted on the White House’s website, President Obama spoke about the Startup America Partnership:
