Month: August 2015

Registration being taken for KCKCC Innovation Summit

by Kelly Rogge

Registration is being accepted for the Kansas City Kansas Community College Innovation Summit.

The summit is Oct. 2, and the ticket cost, which includes lunch, is $10 until Sept. 17, and after that, $15. The deadline for submissions for the pitch contest is Sept. 12.

Registration to pitch your idea, product or business in the Pitch Competition is free. Last year, $10,000 was given away. To register for the 2015 Innovation Summit, purchase tickets, or for more information, visit the Innovation Summit’s website at www.innovationsummitkc.com.

The 4th annual Innovation Summit is from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 2 at KCKCC’s Thomas R. Burke Technical Education Center, 6565 State Ave. Tickets are $10 until Sept. 17. After Sept. 17, tickets are $15. Lunch is provided.

This year, the competition will have a national platform to showcase the business or product ideas of those who register. Friends, family and investors from throughout the United States can view a video of the pitch and cast their votes online. This provides a wider viewing audience for the product or service participants are presenting at the competition.

“Stephen Key, an award-winning inventor, will be one of our expert judges,” said Alicia Hooks, director of entrepreneurship at KCKCC. “People should attend the Innovation Summit for the learning, the ability to see new innovations and to simply go for the experience.”

Submissions for entry into the Pitch Competition must be received by Sept. 12. Online voting is Sept. 13-20. Information is also available by contacting Alicia Hooks at 913-288-7388 or by email at [email protected].

“Your business or business idea will receive national recognition,” Hooks said of registering for the Pitch Competition. “It is no cost to register, and you will be able to get input from others, get noticed and possibly win cash.”

Another addition to the Innovation Summit is the MECA Summit Challenge (Most Entrepreneurial City in America). The MECA Challenge is for high school and college age participants who compete in small groups to create the best solutions for real problems small businesses experience. Judges will evaluate the solutions and give awards based on creativity, feasibility and more.

The 2015 Innovation Summit could not occur without the event’s sponsors who are all supporters of entrepreneurs – State Street, Mid-America Manufacturing and Technology Center and the Bank of Blue Valley.

Coordinating partners include the National Native American Chamber, Leavenworth Community Development Corporation, Heartland Black Chamber of Commerce, Women’s Chamber of Commerce, KCSourcelink, Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools, CEED and the SBDC.

Kelly Rogge is the public information supervisor for Kansas City Kansas Community College.

KCK schools to hold special meeting Sept. 3

The Kansas City, Kan., Board of Education will meet at 3 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3, in the superintendent’s conference room on the third floor of the district’s Central Office and Training Center, 2010 N. 59th St., Kansas City, Kan.

In addition to regular business, the board is scheduled to go into a closed meeting to discuss nonelected personnel matters, and to consult with the board’s attorney, according to the meeting announcement.

KU Medical Center breaks ground for $75 million training facility

Helping the University of Kansas Medical Center ceremonially break ground for its new medical education building on Thursday were, from left, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, Dr. Robert Simari, executive dean of the School of Medicine, and Marge Bott, interim dean of the School of Nursing. (Photo by Mike Sherry)
Helping the University of Kansas Medical Center ceremonially break ground for its new medical education building on Thursday were, from left, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, Dr. Robert Simari, executive dean of the School of Medicine, and Marge Bott, interim dean of the School of Nursing. (Photo by Mike Sherry)

by Mike Sherry, Heartland Health Monitor

When Dr. David Zamierowski was training as a physician in the 1960s, he tried out his new skills on living patients.

“I am so grateful to those poor souls, who knew it was my first time but graciously allowed me to practice on them,” Zamierowski said Thursday at a groundbreaking ceremony for the University of Kansas Medical Center’s new health education building. “But in the back of my mind, I always knew there had to be a better way, and when I first saw simulation, I realized that this was the answer.”

Zamierowski did his residency at KU Med and went on to a 25-year career in plastic surgery in the Kansas City area before retiring a dozen years ago.

His fealty to KU Med and his zeal for simulation are what brought him to the outdoor ceremony Thursday. He was joined by university and elected officials, including Gov. Sam Brownback, as earth was turned for the $75 million building at the corner of 39th Street and Rainbow Boulevard in Kansas City, Kan.

The Zamierowskis were among private donors who kicked in a total of $37 million, including $25 million from the Hall Family Foundation.

Other funding comes from $25 million in state bonds and $15 million from KU Med itself.

Construction is expected to begin next month and be complete in summer 2017.

The 171,000-square-foot building will enable KU to train 50 additional medical students each year at its combined facilities statewide. KU now graduates 211 medical students annually at its three campuses across the state.

Ninety of the state’s 105 counties are medically underserved, according to the university. Current estimates project that 30 percent of the state’s physician workforce will retire or leave their practices within the next decade.

The construction gets under way as a new patient tower for KU Hospital is rising at the corner of 39th and Cambridge streets, immediately east.

The education building “expands the important role that KU Medical Center plays in ensuring that Kansans have access to highly trained doctors and nurses,” Brownback said at the ceremony.

“We are going to train the next generation of physicians for this state and for this nation that are going to be fabulous, there are going to be more (of them), there are going to be more in rural areas … and it’s going to be a fabulous gift to the people of Kansas,” he added.

The building replaces an outdated facility that was built in 1976 and no longer suits the demands of current medical training. It also will enable a new type of medical education stressing interdisciplinary training in which physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other trainees learn together.

Some of that joint training will involve law students, said Doug Girod, executive vice chancellor of KU Med.

Fourth-year medical student Kirsten Devin, 26, of Omaha, said she and fellow students were elated when they heard a new education building might be in the offing.

“For as long as I have been here, and I suspect much longer than that, students on this campus have dreamed of a collaborative education with peers from all different professions and the place where this could effectively occur,” she said. “It is our dream that this building will become a place where future generations of brilliant Jayhawks come together to explore each other’s minds and also to enjoy each other’s company.”

The nonprofit KHI News Service is an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute and a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor reporting collaboration. All stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to KHI.org when a story is reposted online.

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