Pella With the help of a group of dedicated professional mentors and educators, 15 students will continue their entrepreneurship studies at Central College through a new "Startup Semester." The private college, located about an hour southeast of Des Moines, has offered courses in entrepreneurship for a few years now, but this semester the professors and students are stepping even further away from textbooks … read more

Des Moines The Des Moines Register on Sunday published six stories to kick off its new "Starting Up Iowa" series that focuses on startup communities throughout the state of Iowa. The first package of stories took a close look at a northeast Iowa startup community defined by Waterloo and Cedar Falls. "The Cedar Valley has some key ingredients for a vibrant technology and startup scene: UNI's incubator programs; new and advanced-stage … read more

Lincoln Pulling together a hotel reservation, affordable flight and list of activities for a vacation can be daunting. Getting a whole group to agree on travel plans is an entirely different beast. David Chait, a Columbia University graduate student in New York, faced that problem when coordinating a trip for a friend's bachelor party. "We were literally 78 emails … read more

Kansas City Kansas City Public Television's "The Local Show" recently put its cameras on the city's startup community, featuring a neighborhood that's become a popular spot for tech companies. "While tech companies have been popping up all across the metro, there's a noticible cluster developing in the vicinity … read more

Lincoln Sarah Gauger knows that if the resale and consignment shop her mother started in the late '70s is to survive, she needs to attract a new generation of customers. So she and her mother and sister rebranded the Lincoln store two years ago, changing the name from One More Time to omt! She also started loading photos of merchandise onto Facebook, but found it cumbersome, tedious … read more

Sioux Falls Two years after an appearance in an Apple ad on the small screen, the app of a Sioux Falls startup is now featured in a billboard campaign by the California company. "We couldn't be more pleased to discover that Montessorium's Intro to Letters app was featured in the new Apple iPad campaign," co-founder Bobby George said on the company's blog last week. Bobby and his wife, June, co-founded Montessorium in 2010. Today, the company is four people strong and on its fourth app, each inspired by the Montessori approach to learning. "We always feel so fortunate, and humbled, to work with the amazing folks at Apple," George said in an email … read more

Kansas City University of Kansas versus University of Missouri – might finally be quantified. Fannect, a mobile app that promises once and for all to determine which team has the best sports fans, is now available for iOS and Android devices. Co-founded by Hunter Browning, 19 and Will Coatney, 24, Fannect is a sports app that combines social networking with competitive gaming, doling out points to measure a team's best fan and which team has the best group of fans. Using Fannect, fans can play games that measure their … read more

Kansas City The Klink Mobile team is growing. Alan Alvarado of Mexico City joined the mobile transfer startup in December, taking on the role of CTO. Jean-Olivier Buteau of Miami* is Klink's new vice president of business development. Together, along with part time resources in Kansas City, Mo. and a team member in Afghanistan, they round out a small international team that covers two continents and three countries and the combined ability to speak nine languages. "Our main focus right now is building the team and finding the right talent," Klink founder and CEO Jessie Bishop said. … read more