Weekly Recap: Conspiracy Santa, Sculpt wins innovation award & more

Every Monday Silicon Prairie News’ editorial team will share some of the interesting regional content we’ve read as well as SPN’s most-read stories over the last week…

Conspiracy Santa

The Zapier team created Conspiracy Santa as a way to improve holiday gift giving for remote teams.

Every Monday Silicon Prairie News’ editorial team will share some of the interesting regional content we’ve read as well as SPN’s most-read stories over the last week.

SPN’s most-read stories from last week

  1. It’s live: Facebook’s first Altoona data center is now officially online” by Megan Bannister (11/17)
  2. Checking the pulse of the Midwest’s entrepreneurial future” by Guest Contributor (11/18)
  3. ABPathfinder raises Series A round from health care venture capital firm” by Megan Bannister (11/19)
  4. Investment in Iowa: Higher Learning Technologies” by Megan Bannister (11/13)
  5. What’s Iowa’s investment landscape like right now? We took a look” by Megan Bannister (11/13)

Iowa

  • Des Moines startup Jobsite Unite rolled out its product last week with Dean Snyder Construction on two of their West Des Moines projects. — Facebook
  • Sculpt won an Impact & Innovation Award as part of the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce’s Best in Business awards. — Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce
  • BlendCard got some local press attention for its work partnering with businesses in Cedar Rapids and Marion. — CBS2
  • Entrepreneurs discuss startup community at Up the Valley. — Cedar Valley Startups

Kansas City

  • FWD KC is building a resource aggregation tool for the KC community in the form of an interactive map. — FWD KC
  • Merriam, Kan., startup VolunteerMark took third place and a prize of $2,500 at the second annual Mobileys last week. — Mobileys
  • KC-based Kid Rocket Studios launched a Kickstarter campaign to turns its game Kung Fu Robot into a print comic and accompanying mobile app. — Kickstarter

Nebraska

  • Online shop Hello Holiday will open a bricks-and-mortar location in Dundee on Tuesday. — Omaha World-Herald
  • Flywheel announced The Layout, an online design publication. — Flywheel
  • TheUniversity of Nebraska – Lincoln published its annual report, including a look at the University’s Innovation Campus. — University of Nebraska – Lincoln

Everything else

Typically our editorial team limits the weekly recap to SPN’s top stories and news from around our region, but we’ve realized that in any given week we read and hear about other awesome things we’d love to share with you. Here are a few of them:

  • It’s that time of year again, find out how the Zapier team spices co-worker gift giving with Conspiracy Santa. — Zapier Blog 
  • Create a startup community guide with this handy Startup Genome template. — Startup Genome

 

We love to hear what you’re up to! Read something interesting about entrepreneurship or startups in the Midwest? Send it our way at editor@siliconprairienews.com

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 »

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