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June 2012

  • Netflix app nabs top prize after 24 busy hours at first Hack the Midwest

    If you were to guess the location of some Kansas City and the Midwest’s best developers and designers over the weekend, a golf course may not be your first choice, unless you knew about Hack The Midwest. Saturday morning nearly 100 hackers filed into the clubhouse of the Heartland Golf Club and set up shop…

  • Meet our summer interns: Paige, Sarah and Kelsey

    Today we welcome to the Silicon Prairie News team three new faces that will be spending the next 12 weeks with us. But unlike interns in years past that we’ve housed in our Omaha office, our interns this summer are based in cities throughout the Silicon Prairie. …

  • Prairie Moves: A day in the life of a Dwolla developer evangelist

    Lead Read: “A Day in the Life of a Developer Evangelist” – The Next Web interviewed Dwolla’s Michael Schonfeld (above) about his role as a developer evangelist. Quotable: “We’re happy with where we’re at but we’ve still got a long ways to go.” – Instin team blogging about its product myHomework app reaching the 50,000…

  • Hudl acquires APEX, solidifies spot atop sports video analysis market

    The high school sports offseason is, it appears, prime shopping season for Hudl. For the second offseason in a row — and the second time inside a calendar year — Hudl has purchased its largest competitor. The Lincoln company, which makes web-based video analysis and coaching tools for sports teams, today announced it has acquired…

  • Prairie Portrait: Brandon Ratzlaff of Dwolla

    Silicon Prairie News: You’re one of a handful of Dwolla team members not based in Des Moines. What do you do to stay tapped in to the company’s culture from afar? | Brandon Ratzlaff: There are a couple of things we do that I think really help keep the remote members aligned with the rest…

  • Demo day showcases first class of BetaBlox startups

    StartKC and BetaBlox teamed up on May 24 to host startFEST+DEMO, a demo day that showcased 10 Kansas City startups that participated in the BetaBlox incubator and accelerator hybrid and within StartKC’s startup program. It was the first big opportunity for some of the teams, which were selected last year, to present to an audience…

  • Q&A: John Jackovin goes full-time with bootstrapped Bawte

    About 15 minutes after coming up with the idea for Bawte, John Jackovin said he knew he’d one day be working on it full-time. That day came on Friday, after he left his position with Bettrlife, another Des Moines startup, to work on Bawte 100 percent. Jackovin, 38, co-founded Bawte with the aim of harnessing…

  • BitMethod’s Amanda Morrow reflects on one year of Design+Tech

    When Amanda Morrow decided last year to launch a new Des Moines meetup group, she did so with tech-challenged designers in mind. “They needed a place to get started that wasn’t overly intimidating or technical,” said Morrow, an interactive designer at Des Moines-based BitMethod. “A group where they could be introduced to the fundamentals.” Once…

  • Appcore tops list of companies in Five Elms Capital’s first Flyover 50

    Appcore, a Des Moines-based provider of cloud computing infrastructure, topped the list of companies recognized as part of the inaugural Flyover 50, an effort by Five Elms Capital to recognize the 50 fastest-growing companies in the middle of the country. All told, the Flyover 50 includes 11 companies based in the geographic area covered by…

  • Iowa angel group forms with focus on Midwest

    The Business Innovation Zone announced Sunday the formation of the Plains Angels, an independent, nonprofit consortium of angel investors that plans to make investments in the areas of technology, agriculture and manufacturing. “We want to help (accredited) investors more efficiently access high-quality deal flow,” said Mike Colwell (far left), director of the Business Innovation Zone,…