Education Stories

Arash Ferdowsi, co-founder of Dropbox

Return on investment: Why the co-founder of tech giant Dropbox just donated $500K to Blue Valley schools

Blue Valley schools, teachers, and students are expected to benefit greatly from a newly announced fund launched by the homegrown Johnson County tech entrepreneur who later co-founded the cloud storage giant Dropbox. Arash Ferdowsi, a 2004 graduate of Blue Valley Northwest High School, has put up $500,000 to launch the Arash Ferdowsi Fund, which benefits…

Neelima Parasker, SnapIT Solutions, speaks during an announcement event with WSU Tech and Groover Labs in Wichita; photo courtesy of WSU Tech

She’s on a mission to boost the region’s tech talent; SnapIT’s new office in Wichita is the next step

Overland Park-based SnapIT Solutions has expanded its promise to deliver high-quality technology job training and educational services into Wichita, Neelima Parasker said, detailing a new partnership between the information technology firm and Wichita State University.  “The IT side of the tech industry is now more in demand than ever. … I want to maximize Kansas’…

Nikil Ragav, inventXYZ

New in KC: How Travis Kelce lured Pennsylvania startup inventXYZ (and its team) to Kansas City

Editor’s note: New in KC is an ongoing profile series that highlights newly relocated members of the Kansas City startup community, their reasons for a change of scenery, and what they’ve found so far in KC. This series is sponsored by C2FO, a Leawood-based, global financial services company. Click here to read more New in KC profiles. Nikil Ragav’s journey to…

The Innovator Awards recognize innovativeness and marketability of project ideas in Project Lead The Way's biomedical science and engineering capstone courses. (File photo by Charles Maples)

How intersecting K-12 student competitions build design thinking, inventiveness and an entrepreneurial mindset

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone. Callen Fairchild Zind is communications manager for the KC STEM Alliance. How do you prepare for a career when the world is changing at such a rapid pace that no one can quite envision what jobs of the future will look like? In Kansas…

The Innovation Studio, Robert W. Plaster Free Enterprise and Research Center, UMKC

UMKC unveils innovation studio, inviting students, entrepreneurs to collaborate within $32M research center

In a hiring environment where college graduates are expected to possess honed skills for even entry-level positions, a state-of-the-art innovation studio in the heart of Kansas City allows students access to technology to actually build products within their chosen professions. “We have never had a facility like this — with the diversity of equipment and…