Omaha Weren't able to make it to KANEKO today for our fifth annual Big Omaha? Don't worry. We're providing a free live stream starting at 9:00 a.m., thanks to our sponsor Hayneedle. Here's today's schedule … read more

Omaha To get a jump on the action of the final day of Big Omaha, join Des Moines entrepreneur Christopher New and Silicon Prairie News' Jeff Slobotski for AM Reboot, a morning podcast for geeks. Today's hour-long live video show is focused on the people, places and events of Big Omaha. AM Reboot is the flagship program of our streaming media partner, Quadrant5. Here's what's in store for today … read more

Omaha According to Ben Milne, one of the biggest mistakes a founder can make is to abandon the Silicon Prairie and its Midwestern roots. And he should know. Without the community surrounding his Des Moines-based company, Milne said Dwolla probably wouldn't be thriving today. "Had we not stayed here, we would not have made the friendships with people in this room," he said. "Had we not stayed here … read more

Omaha A subtle shift is being felt at Big Omaha this year. Thanks to well-marked recycle bins, art installations, and even conference speakers themselves, the event has a new focus on sustainability. "As our conference gets bigger, it was hard to watch how sustainability wasn't a part of it," our event coordinator Brittany Mascio said before the event... read more

Omaha Anil Dash challenged the crowd at Big Omaha to recognize the ethics, legal principles and cycles of expression and economization that are developing in the tech world, and to think harder about how things should be done. “We’ve forgotten that technology has values,” said the Internet veteran, who has been blogging for almost 15 years. One issue he touched on is the industry's disposable attitude. Will our digital content be considered art in the ... read more

Omaha Catherine Rohr’s American dream is different than the average entrepreneur’s. Yes, she has a background in investments, but now she invests in people through Defy Ventures, a program that teaches former felons to be successful entrepreneurs. After visiting a Texas prison with a friend, Rohr’s world was turned upside down when she discovered many inmates are profitable businessmen and entrepreneurs, but are stuck in a cycle of incarceration ... read more

Omaha Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora, co-founders of Back to the Roots, developed their grow-at-home mushroom kits without knowing anything about mushrooms. Or even, really, food. After all, their careers after graduation from Berkeley were intended to be in investment banking and consulting. But they pressed on from their launch in 2009 to learn three key lessons, which they shared this afternoon at Big Omaha: read more

Omaha Big Omaha has gone 8bit. The annual event is nearly one day in, and even at this highly innovative tech conference, there's still room for old-school style—and Adam Nielsen is proving it. Nielsen is one of this year's Big Omaha artists, live-drawing (yep, that's right—live-drawing) caricatures of the 14 speakers while they're on stage. Images from his computer are projected onto a wall in the event … read more