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disRUPT: FTNI helps clients streamline payments
(Left: Financial Transmission Network Inc. CEO Kurt Matis. Photo by Marlon Wright.) Merchants offer customers many ways to pay, including checks, credit cards and online transactions. This creates customer convenience, according to Kurt Matis, but it also leads to back-office complexity for merchants and higher costs for everyone. “If a business wants to scan checks,…
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disRUPT: Nanotech research is tiny, but important to IT development
(Left: Christian Binek of University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Photo by Marlon Wright.) Size does matter when it comes to electronics. Consumers seem to prefer ever-smaller devices, but making things too small could lead to major technological problems in roughly 10 years. Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are working on both aspects of the size issue.…
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disRUPT: NeHII works toward better healthcare database
(Left: Deb Bass of the Nebraska Health Information Initiative (NeHII). Photo by Marlon Wright.) Despite repeated calls for a digital healthcare records system, paper usually runs the show. You fill out the insurance form multiple times. Your critical records might be at another location across town. If you experience a health crisis, emergency room doctors…
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disRUPT: UNeMed helps get new breakthroughs to patients
(Left: UNeMed president Michael Dixon. Photo by Marlon Wright.) Billions of dollars go into medical research, and billions can eventually be made from the resulting products. Unfortunately, there is often a large gap between an idea and its profits. This is called the “valley of death” in the health care field, and it’s UneMed’s job…
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disRUPT: Omaha doctor invents ergonomic medical instruments
If you underwent triple bypass heart surgery, you wouldn’t want your doctor’s hands to cramp, or lose his grip of an instrument. During an average surgery lasting two to four hours, surgeons not only suffer the consequences of standing in one place for an extended time, but also the occasional slippery scalpel handle. Guru Instruments…
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Special Series: disRUPT II
Over these next few days, we’ll be publishing five stories from the latest special section that ran in The Reader, an Omaha weekly alternative newspaper. This special section, titled disRUPT (left: cover, courtesy of The Reader, photo by Marlon Wright), is a partnership between The Reader, Scott Technology Center and us, Silicon Prairie News. Here’s…
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Joe Moglia shares advice for young professionals & entrepreneurs
In addition to putting his leadership skills to work inside of TD AMERITRADE, Joe Moglia, the company’s current chairman and former CEO, has been sharing them at conferences, fundraisers, and universities over the past decade. Friends of mine that have seen him speak say he’s one of the most inspirational speakers they have heard. Although…
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Joe Moglia reflects on importance of communication & risk taking
When Joe Moglia, former CEO and current chairman of TD AMERITRADE, sat down with The Reader’s Kyle Tonniges for the first issue of disRUPT, he spoke candidly about subjects ranging from his childhood in Manhattan to his quest to land a career as a Division I head football coach. Most of all, he reflected on…
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TD AMERITRADE’s Joe Moglia bucks tradition
The following article is part of a special insert in the June 3-9 issue of The Reader, a weekly newspaper focusing on the area’s culture. | Innovation, determination and the courage to change the way business is done — the boldness to disrupt traditional thinking — is often prized in hindsight. Success, as they say,…
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Êelios’ WeatherFix app delivers location-specific weather information
The following article is part of a special insert in the June 3-9 issue of The Reader, a weekly newspaper focusing on the area’s culture. | Storm watching takes a new twist with WeatherFix. The geo-location weather technology app by the Omaha-based firm Êelios (a subsidiary of 21st Century Systems, Inc.) offers users precision forecasts…