Mike McGinnis of The Peter Kiewit Institute, Dave Milligan of Advent IP (a Pipeline in Nebraska sponsor) and Joni Cobb of Pipeline. Photo from Pipeline on Facebook.
The reopening of Interstate 29 between Kansas City and Omaha earlier this month came at a perfect time for Pipeline. Organizers, current participants and alumni of the Kansas-based entrepreneurial fellowship appear to have traveled the recently reopened roadway in droves late last week, turning out in good numbers Friday afternoon for a happy hour at Omaha’s Urban Wine Company to celebrate the expansion of Pipeline into Nebraska.
In Omaha, the Pipeline crew met with the program’s Nebraska partners and interested entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs planning to apply for Pipeline’s 2012 class have until Oct. 24 to do so. More information on the preferred criteria for applicants, specifics on what the fellowship entails and the benefits of the fellowship can be found on Pipeline’s application page.
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Pipeline, a five-year-old program, announced on Oct. 4 that it would include Nebraska in its first regional class. As we reported this spring, Pipeline is expanding its focus from Kansas to a larger region with the help of an $800,000 challenge grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.*
At Friday’s event, our Jeff Slobotski visited about Pipeline with Joni Cobb, the president and CEO of Pipeline; Dave Milligan a founding partner of Advent IP and a Nebraska sponsor of Pipeline; and Toby Rush, the co-founder, president and CEO of Rush Tracking Systems and a Pipeline alumni. Footage of that interview is embedded below, followed by photos of Friday’s event (all from Pipeline on Facebook).
*Update Nov. 23, 8 a.m. — A previous version of this story inaccurately stated that Pipleline shifted its focus regionally due, in part, to budget cuts in Kansas. Though the cuts helped expedite expansion plans, they did not “cause” the expansion, Cobb says. Plans to expand, Cobb says, were “due to the success of the model” and were already in the works between Pipeline and the Kauffman Foundation.
