Many believe that the high-tech boom has passed us by. But the facts are different.
Kansas City has been one of the most notable, if largely unheralded, high-tech
success stories in the U.S. Our community was rated higher than Chicago, Atlanta
or Minneapolis/St. Paul in a High-Tech City study that appeared in the January
2001 of Expansion Management magazine. The same magazine placed the
area 16th out of the Top 50 Hottest Cities for Business Relocation. CyberCities
Surveys placed our city 18th in rate of high-tech job growth, and 28th
in high-tech employment. Forbes magazine ranked Kansas City 40th out
of 200 metro areas for the best place to start a business or begin a career
in high-tech.
Whether we choose to believe it or not, we are in fact, already, a
high-tech city.
As the entrepreneur responsible for raising the capital to sustain a start-up
business, I have been both impressed by the availability of venture capital
in the local community and forced to face the reality that I would have to
find sources of capital outside the metropolitan area. This is a common experience
but it represents only one of the core challenges that KC CATALYST faces in
helping to realize the community’s potential.
As a catalyzing force for positive change in the community KC CATALYST is
focused on three simple ideas:
Collaboration:
All of the interdependent constituencies that make up the technology-based
communities in the bi-state region must collaborate for us to succeed.
Commercialization:
Without a plan to commercialize the product of great minds, there will be
no economic gain. Prosperity will pass us by and only benefit other communities.
Capital Formation:
Kansas City must become a magnet to new economic investment.
The generosity of the Stowers and Hall families may one day soon produce Nobel
Laureate discoveries in our community, but the painful reality is that if
we build and support a world-class research infrastructure without also building
an equal commercialization infrastructure then those noble efforts will only
work to the economic benefit of other communities where they are commercialized.
What is required to make this a reality is a vision for our community that
is bold, yet simple: we must set the world standard for New Economy communities.
Note that this vision does not require that we be the biggest, only that we
be the best. The best in terms of five critical components, all within our
reach: world-class research, entrepreneurial spirit, the best-trained and
educated workforce, the best commercialization infrastructure, and the best
access to capital. It is a formula that could, in the next five to 10 years,
establish Kansas City as one of the frontline cities of the global New Economy.
This vision starts with the belief that Kansas City is not so much a geo-political
place as it is an idea. That idea resonates at the heart of
a vibrant region that is both a great place to live and work. Like every great
idea it does not exist in bricks and mortar, roads and bridges, or even in
institutions. It exists in the minds of the people who already live here and
in the perceptions of future constituents, customers, and co-workers. It is
an idea about what we already know to be true. It is the idea that sparks
the untested, usually unspoken, but deeply held beliefs about the place we
live and work.
Technology is the engine driving the new innovation economy. Science and entrepreneurship
are the fuel for that engine. Every part of our economic community is dependent
on and deeply integrated with a set of technologies that become more ingrained
and interdependent everyday. Every business decision is directly or indirectly
dependent on, or conditioned by, technology contingencies. The once imagined
bright line between high tech and low tech is today just a big blur.
It is important to grasp these concepts and to incorporate them as we plot
how to leverage the resources made available to us right here in the middle
of America. Embracing technology does not mean we have to give up that which
makes life here so special. This place is not Paris, or Rome, or New York,
or Austin, Texas. It isn’t even, as someone said, “the San Francisco
of the plains.” It isn’t Silicon Valley or Silicon Alley. The accidents
of geography and the reality of history have left us with a unique place with
a past of its own and with its own reason to exist.
What started as the Town of Kansas, near the joining of two rivers and the
divide of two territories, became the American crossroads for cattle drives
and overland migrations, and then for the railroads, and now for global telecommunications,
and I believe some day soon for life sciences.
Technology growth is in the interest of every man, woman, child, business
and organization in this region if we are to achieve success in the 21st century.
Concentrated effort and commitment, along with concentrated action, is the
only way to ensure that the bi-state region does not get left behind. The
good news is that this region has some fundamental advantages that will allow
us to continue forward even during economic turmoil.
The presence in our community of Hallmark, DST, Cerner, H&R Block, Sprint,
and other strong companies provide a resilient base for the local economy.
The bi-state region has many significant core strengths including nationally
recognized school districts a strong manufacturing base, and a growing IT-services
sector. These are complemented by an exceptionally strong entrepreneurial
support network. In addition, marvelous gifts by the Stowers and Hall families
for medical research have sparked hopes that the area’s world-class biotechnology
research will open new opportunity for commercialization and long-term economic
growth.
Yet despite our advantages and all the “good news,” the region has
yet to fully leverage its potential with the new economy. The reality of the
vision, and the benefits of greater participation in the economic imperatives
of the so-called new economy, have been clearly in the sights of the region’s
leadership. More than a year ago university, civic, corporate, and enterprising
leaders found a new energy and urgency in conversations over how to pull these
assets together. Those dialogues revealed a serious commitment to accelerate
technology growth in the bi-state area.
The result is the creation of KC CATALYST— conceived as the honest
broker and central point of collaboration. Its goal is to make certain
that the whole of our many resources is much greater than some arbitrary sum
of the parts. KC CATALYST is about making a difference; the very definition
of a catalyst captures the essence of our mission. Our goal is to be a change
agent in a large community that happens to be bifurcated by a state line and
that includes many counties, cities and towns. Among the many initiatives
that will fall to KC CATALYST are the following:
• Facilitating the collaboration between
public and private research to accelerate technology transfer within the bi-state
region—and insure that it stays here;
• Facilitating the collaboration between
local businesses and the area’s education institutions to enhance the
training, recruiting, and retention of a quality work force;
• Identifying appropriate sources of capital
and helping entrepreneurs make their offerings capital-ready;
n Mobilizing the regional technology community to identify and resolve issues
that inhibit the growth of the technology sector in the bi-state region;
• Creating forums to advance the crucial
social, business and personal networks essential for a thriving
entrepreneurial community.
Through community-wide strategic alignment, collaboration and action, we can
all prosper from the new growth that awaits us. Our families and the generations
to follow will be the beneficiaries of the visionary steps we take today.
Those of us who by accident of birth, by choice or by chance now find ourselves
in the middle of the American continent at the beginning of a new century
have the opportunity to define the future of our community.
I believe that the future will be governed not so much by any particular political
choices we make as by our belief in the power and value of our community,
by our acting on our convictions that growth is good for our children’s
prosperity, and by embracing the brave, new world where once- novel innovations
have become invisible infrastructures.
We have a rare and timely opportunity to exploit existing assets and to build
even greater value in every institution. Our historical location is rich with
suggestive meaning: the port-west where adventure, pioneering and discovery
began. Our uniquely rich mix of urban, suburban and rural life styles are
all within easy reach of one another. The challenge to those of us in a position
to make a difference is not to do anything that is impossible, but to embrace
the possible.
Our mission is to do today and every day the things that we know will make
our vision a reality and make our tomorrows even richer. It will be a story
of consensus, commitment and collaboration. It will be a story to catalyze
a community.
David Frankland is the CEO of KC Catalyst. He can be reached at 816-235-6184
or by e-mail at dfrankland@kccatalyst.com.