Wichita entrepreneurial organization NXTUS Inc. on Thursday launched a pilot competition designed to connect entrepreneurs and ideas with organizations that can leverage them for the good of entire communities.
The 2021 NXSTAGE Community Health and Vibrancy competition will take applications for around a month and then hope to have finalists selected by early July in time for a competition showcase later that month or in early August.
“This is going to move quickly,” says Mary Beth Jarvis, executive director of NXSTAGE.
The competition will be similar to the pilot contest the organization held last year to connect entrepreneurs to financial institutions looking to leverage new technologies.
This time, entrants will bring to the table technologies geared toward health and health-care issues or other aspects of civic growth.
This will be a chance, Jarvis says, for innovation to directly impact communities across the state.
“I think it’s really compelling and we’re excited about it,” she says.
Applications are now available online.
The competition is being presented by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, which is supporting the event with a $65,000 grant.
Virginia Barnes, director of the Blue Health Initiatives program at BCBSKS, says the contest fits well with the organization’s mission of investing to create healthy, sustainable communities.
“The challenges that Kansans face to staying healthy and vibrant are not new issues; other areas of the country and the world are experiencing these same things,” she says in a press release. “By tapping into entrepreneurs and technology solutions at the local, national and worldwide levels, we can pair community partners with the solutions that make them stronger.”
The competition launches with six partner institutions that will evaluate the offerings of applying startups from around the world.
Those organizations are:
• Cowley County Economic Development Partnership
• Hodgeman County Economic Development
• Hunter Health
• Lincoln County Economic Development Foundation
• Scott City Economic Development Committee
• Thrive Allen County
In addition to the BCBSKS grant, the NXTSTAGE competition is supported by the Talent Ecosystem Fund at the Wichita Community Foundation and NetWork Kansas.
“We think Kansas communities and businesses can be great proving ground for all kinds of innovations offered up by startups,” Jarvis says. “We believe the Air Capital of the World can become the Pilot Capital of the World, and we’re ‘planting a flag’ to let smart young companies everywhere know that they have the chance to grow their business in Kansas,”
