Congressman Cleaver Announces Grant Award for UMKC

Kansas City, Mo – Congressman Cleaver, together with the U.S. Economic Development Association, is pleased to announce that nearly $1 million in grant funding has been awarded to the University of Missouri Kansas City.

“I applaud UMKC for earning this award, and I look forward to following their continued success in expanding innovation, commercialization, and new enterprise formation in Kansas City, Missouri, and beyond,” said Congressman Cleaver. “This award recognizes UMKC as a soon-to-be model for innovating in the heart of America, increasing the quantity and quality of entrepreneurs coming out of Missouri’s Fifth District, and creating jobs and good opportunities for local economic development.  I was proud to advocate for UMKC’s application and am pleased that the Department of Commerce has recognized their continued excellence.”

“We are pleased to be part of this strong collaboration to move the region forward in digital innovation,” said Maria Meyers, Director of the UMKC Innovation Center. “The Digital Sandbox will fill a much needed role in bringing together our entrepreneurs with big industry and providing support for early stage proof of concept development.”

The award will fund UMKC’s Digital Sandbox Proof of Concept Center, which creates a new process for commercialization in Kansas City by clustering digital innovation in a central hub and providing the needed technology infrastructure.  The Sandbox addresses two immediate gaps in the entrepreneurial ecosystem: connecting large industry to the entrepreneurial and university research networks and providing technical assistance funding for early-stage concept development. The project seeks to produce up to 15 new ventures over a two-year period.

This award was funded through the i6 Challenge, which is a multi-agency competition led by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, to promote American innovation, foster entrepreneurship, and increase the commercialization of ideas into viable companies.  The competition is designed to encourage and reward universities and research centers to create proof of concept centers that identify innovations to commercialize and help them to put together the building blocks to create high growth, successful companies, including business model support, access to investors, mentors and access to potential customers. Over the last two years, OIE has provided $24 million to 12 winners across the United States to create their own centers for innovation and entrepreneurship. More information on i6 is available here.

Emanuel Cleaver, II is the U.S. Representative for Missouri’s Fifth Congressional District, which includes Kansas City, Independence, Lee's Summit, Raytown, Grandview, Sugar Creek, Belton, Raymore and Peculiar, Missouri. He is a member of the exclusive House Financial Services Committee. Congressman Cleaver also serves as a Senior Whip of the Democratic Caucus and Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.