Austin U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) took the stage at South by Southwest Interactive on Sunday afternoon for a brief presentation, an interview with the director of an Austin startup accelerator and an audience Q&A. His topic, "Encouraging Innovation and Empowering Entrepreneurs," focused on The Startup Act, a bill he co-authored with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). "I started looking for an avenue, a venue in which … read more

Omaha When Proxibid president Ryan Downs sat down for an interview with Silicon Prairie News in September, Downs highlighted two goals at the top of his company's to-do list for the immediate future: growth of the marketplace and international expansion. With its latest hire, Proxibid appears to be backing up Downs' talk. The Omaha-based real auction marketplace announced Monday that Larry Latham, billed by Proxibid as an "auction industry pioneer," has joined its team to add focus to its business development strategy. "I am very excited about the opportunity … read more

Omaha Two Omahans are among a list of investors named as participants in a $2.5 million Series A round by Artspace, an online marketplace for contemporary art. On Jan. 31, the New York-based startup sent out the announcement, naming 12 investors. Four of them are institutional investors and eight are individuals, including Todd Simon, senior … read more

Omaha The Silicon Prairie News team grew by two last week as we welcomed aboard our spring interns, Kira Olson and Amy Engle. Kira, our event intern, and Amy, our content intern, have hit the ground running, already diving into work on our upcoming Omaha Startup Job Crawl and our evolving Silicon Prairie Map, respectively. Up until the last day of Big Omaha … read more

Omaha Rep. Lee Terry of Nebraska (left), a former co-sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act ("SOPA") who dropped support for the bill on Jan. 18, is looking to his constituents for ideas on how to curb online piracy. Utilizing the virtual town hall product of Omaha startup MindMixer, Terry has posted "Internet Piracy" as one of the topics on Lee Listens … read more

Des Moines SmartyPig announced on Monday that it had brought on a new president, Scott McCormack, to replace CEO Bob Weinschenk, who is no longer with the company. McCormack came on board full-time … read more

At the start of Wednesday, we published a list with four Silicon Prairie politicians who had, according to ProPublica, publicly shown or stated their support of the Stop Online Piracy Act ("SOPA") or the Protect IP Act ("PIPA").* As of 4 p.m. today, there were no known public supporters of the bills among the 29 U.S. House and … read more

Rep. Lee Terry of Nebraska announced today that he is removing his name as a co-sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act ("SOPA"), which is one of two highly contested bills (along with the Protect IP Act, or "PIPA") at the center of today's internet backlash. "Thank you for your concern about #SOPA," Terry said on his Facebook page. "I have asked to have my name removed … read more