UpStart: Silicon Valley and Kansas City Startup Stories
Exhibited September 2019–March 2020
Meet the upstarts: risk-takers, visionaries, disruptors, founders, and builders. What makes these people tick and where can they thrive? UpStart was a prototype traveling exhibit about entrepreneurial people, companies, and communities. After showing in Kansas City in November and December, 2019, the exhibit showed in Silicon Valley until March 2020.
Exhibit Features
UpStart explored stories from KC founders like Sandy Kemper at C2FO and Toby Rush at ZOLOZ, community builders like Adam Arrendondo, Joni Cobb and Darcy Howe, and stadium design and sports tech champions like Populous and ShotTracker. The exhibit also featured Silicon Valley stories, from the legendary Apple to fashion innovator StitchFix and the venture capital cluster.
Review past programs from Kansas City and Silicon Valley.
Explore UpStart
UpStart companion initiatives included online activities that extended learning beyond the exhibit and provided lessons learned from Kansas City and Silicon Valley on building an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Explore and learn more below.
You can’t just say “entrepreneurs work harder, do more.” You’ve got to leverage all that collective intelligence, the wisdom and the passion and the resources from the community as a whole.
— Victor Hwang, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
UpStart was made possible by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and other generous supporters of the Exponential Center at CHM.
