Silicon Prairie News

We would like to share our gratitude to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for their support of this year's Big Omaha event. We've had the opportunity to work with Bo Fishback, vice president of entrepreneurship, and others at the foundation for some time. Big Omaha 2010 was a great opportunity for us to work together with the foundation in a sponsor's role.

According to their website, kauffman.org: 

The Ewing Marion Foundation was established in the mid-1960s by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman. Based in Kansas City, MO., the Kauffman Foundation is among the 30 largest foundations in the United States with an asset base of approximately $2 billion.

Their vision is to foster “a society of economically independent individuals who are engaged citizens, contributing to the improvement of their communities.” In service of this vision, and in keeping with their founder’s wishes, they focus their grant making and operations on two areas: advancing entrepreneurship and improving the education of children and youth. They carry out this mission through four programmatic areas: entrepreneurship, advancing innovation, education and research and policy.

By having the Kauffman Foundation involved in our work, we are able to build upon the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Midwest. The foundation's continued support has motivated us to take the appropriate steps to maintain the free-flowing entrepreneurial spirit that is thriving here.

Also, a grand thank you to Tammy Flores and Sandy Miller of the foundation, who were in attendance at Big Omaha and who many of you had the opportunity to talk with them about the work they are involved with!

As we continue building Big Omaha, as well as Silicon Prairie News, we'll be talking with and learning from the Kauffman Foundation about what can be done to best serve our entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem on the Silicon Prairie.