Hello, Silicon Prairie. Nice Knowing You, Valley & Alley.

What’s the Latest Development?

Entrepreneur Jeff Slobotski is hard at work making America’s Great Plains the next region of technological innovation. With Silicon Alley and Silicon Valley well-established, Slobotski believes that cities like Omaha, Des Moines and Kansas City may form the backbone of a new generation of tech start ups. “What has made Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, Austin or Boulder different are not the exact same things that will make the Omaha, Des Moines and the Kansas City regions successful. If we want to change American cities, we need to start by increasing the connections in our own backyards.”

What’s the Big Idea?

Slobotski offers some tips for bringing together your community and concentrating resources in a way that will help entrepreneurs, investors, mentors and stakeholders: “One of the first steps we identified as being pivotal to developing and consistently building our community is to identify a community champion… If something is not being done, then it falls upon you to create the change you want to see. … The next step in building a community is to have a distribution channel to share information through events, profiles or stories. For us this was, and continues to be, the Silicon Prairie News website.”

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