Kansas City Following the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce's Tuesday announcement of its "Big 5" ideas for improving Kansas City, a quartet of the Chamber's top dogs sat down to discuss that quintet of ideas with Nick Haines for Friday's episode of Kansas City Week In Review. Joining Haines were: Jim Heeter, Chamber president and CEO; Greg Graves … read more

San Francisco Two Silicon Prairie startups have emerged from a field of 12 today taking home top prize in Ad Age's Digital West Brand Hacks competition. Thanks to a tip from Jordan Lampe of Dwolla, we've learned Zaarly, a startup based in San Francisco with offices in Kansas City, took the "Social Hack" portion and Dwolla, a startup based in Des Moines, took the "Mobile Hack" portion, sharing the honor … read more

Cedar Falls T8 Webware today introduced a new product designed to give consumers a better understanding — or grip, as it were — of their personal financial picture. Grip, unveiled at FinovateFall 2011, is an app that aggregates a consumers' balance and transaction data from an unlimited number of domestic financial institutions into a single … read more

Ankeny There are plenty of geolocation features on social networks, but Dylan Hamilton … read more

Lincoln Patrick Smith spoke at the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce's most recent "Face the Chamber" luncheon on Wednesday, and Nebraska Entrepreneur was on hand to film Smith's talk. Smith, a principal and COO at Nebraska Global, delivered a talk on the investment landscape in Nebraska as a whole and on the activities at his company in particular … read more

Omaha An application designed to "organize restaurants' schedules the easy way" will celebrate its beta launch tonight at the tech-centric restaurant that has provided the app's training ground. CheckASchedule, the product of an Omaha-based team headed by Greg Mahloch, will mark its formal introduction to the world … read more

Zaarly has an interesting product, a talented team, connected investors, celebrity advisors and, as we wrote about earlier today, attention from the media. And as of Thursday, thanks to a recent contest on the Zaarly blog, they now have a rap song. "Whatever you need you can find it here at Zaarly," the chorus starts, "when I say I got it you know we ain't playing are we. I tell 'em if they need me I'm just a call away, now my phone is blowing up almost a million times a day." Described by the Zaarly blog as the Eminem of Texas … read more

Kansas City The University of Missouri-Kansas City business school on Thursday officially announced a $32 million gift, the largest in its history, with an apparent eye toward innovation and entrepreneurship. Henry W. Bloch, the co-founder of H&R Block and the namesake of UMKC's Bloch School, donated the $32 million. It will help fund an expansion, which will be called the Henry W. Bloch … read more