Melanie Haas (from left), Jared Jennings, Parker Hills, Adam Sheridan and Lisa Tiesing of the Keyzio team discuss their platform for connecting home buyers and sellers.
Swelling skies appeared likely to put the breaks on outdoor activities at any moment this afternoon in Kansas City, Mo., but that certainly didn’t slow the speed of progress inside the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce Board Room (left) at Union Station. There, 12 teams and 98 participants in total busily built their ideas during the second day of Startup Weekend Kansas City.
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The dozen teams formed Friday night in support of the most popular ideas presented during Startup Weekend’s opening pitch session. Teams reconvened bright and early — or, given the aforementioned skies, just early — Saturday morning with plans of working well into the night on the marathon middle day of the 54-hour event.
The teams will return again Sunday morning to put the finishing touches on their minimum viable product and fine-tune their five-minute pitches. Those pitches will begin around 4:30 p.m. Sunday, following a 4 p.m. talk from Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran. Towards the end of the pitches, dinner will be served.
Spectator tickets for Sunday night’s event are available for $15 on the Startup Weekend Kansas City Eventbrite page. People who can’t make it to Union Station can catch the pitches streaming live right here on Silicon Prairie News, and they can track the Startup Weekend Kansas City Twitter conversation all weekend by following the hashtag #kcsw.
Below are brief descriptions of the 12 teams of Startup Weekend Kansas City (many of the descriptions are courtesy of a post by SPN contributor and SWKC organizer Royce Hanyes on the SWKC blog) and photos from the middle day at Kansas City’s fifth Startup Weekend.
The teams
LunchUp
- Description: A network for broadcasting and coordinating lunch plans and locations. LunchUp is billed as “the simplest way to share what you’re doing for lunch.”
- Team lead: Ramsey Mohsen
OutOfTheTrash
- Description: A mobile app that encourages and rewards recycling electronics.
- Team lead: Kajari Ghosh
Card Perk
- Description: A way to consolidate all of your reward cards by using your current credit card.
Grüple
- Description: An application that aims to simplify group payments by enabling people to pool their money for specific events or bills.
- Team lead: Justin Borreto
Divshot
- Description: An application for the rapid prototyping of web apps billed as “an application builder that software developers would even use.”
- Team lead: Michael Bleigh
HomeMade Food
- Description: A video companion for cooking at home.
- Team lead: Cory MacVie
TutHopper
- Description: A web-based system that uses video games to teach kids the basic principles of programming and system architecture.
- Team lead: Carrie Royce
Connect Power
- Description: A system that provides instant peer support for mental health needs.
- Team lead: Corinna West
Keyzio
- Description: A platform that connects home buyers and sellers, Keyzio is “where every home is for sale.”
- Team lead: Parker Hills
Link-Minded
- Description: A location-based platform for connecting like-minded individuals in an effort to encourage collaboration and forward-thinking
- Team lead: Joshua Eithun
NotiFire
- Description: Aimed at simplifying phone, text and social media notifications, NotiFire lets anyone send urgent message broadcasts.
- Team lead: Steve Sokol
Change Stations
- Description: A location-based finder of baby changing stations.
- Team lead: Eric J. Gruber
Day 2 in photos
The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce Board Room provides ample room for the 12 teams of Startup Weekend Kansas City to work the day away on Saturday.
Chad Elliot (left) and Chris Lewman plug away at work for the LunchUp team.
Members of the OutOfTheTrash team find a quiet spot to discuss their eco-friendly app.
Adam Arrendondo (from left), Carrie Royce and DJ Good of the TutHopper team build their system for teaching kids the basics of programming through video games.
Jake Johnson (foreground) gives a midday update on Divshot as SWKC organizers Royce Haynes (left) and Nate Allen look on.
Link-Minded’s Garry Polley, Robbie Jack and Steven Cummings work on their product, which is a platform for connecting like-minded individuals.
In the midst of Startup Weekend’s longest day, participants refuel over the lunch hour.
Eric J. Gruber, Darrin Ragsdale and Charles R. Cannon hash out details for the Change Stations team.
Credits: Photos by Michael Stacy.