Wichita Startup Week will return for its second year in October, promising a packed string of days for local entrepreneurs and startup stakeholders.
Presented once again by Koch Industries Inc., organizers Thursday detailed some of its plans for 2022 and asked for community engagement in lining out the agenda.
Plans for the 2022 event, Oct. 10-14 at Groover Labs, 334 N. St. Francis, include a diversity and inclusion discussion, presented by Fidelity Bank, as well as events centered around newcomer startups, an event centered around existing new companies presented by accounting firm EY (Ernst & Young) and an innovation talk presented by the Kansas Department of Commerce.
Event organizers are asking for submissions on possible panelists and speakers for those events, which can be done online.
Other planned programming for 2022 includes an Oct. 10 kickoff party, an Oct. 12 NXTUS Inc.-sponsored enterprise engagement event, an Oct. 13 trade show sponsored by local cryptocurrency startup Voltage and a pitch competition presented by Cox Business, and a Oct. 14 finale presented by Martin Pringle Law Firm.
“We see the mutual benefit Wichita Startup Week brings to the local business and entrepreneurial communities,” Koch Disruptive Technologies director Navin Maharaj said. “Koch is excited to sponsor this event for the second consecutive year and we’re looking forward to seeing how sharing ideas can inspire others to develop that ‘next big thing’ in a principled way.”
The inaugural Wichita Startup Week in 2021, also held at Groover Labs, hosted more than 40 events, powered by 300 registrants and more than 2,300 distributed tickets.
The local event is a partnership with Techstars, a Colorado-based seed accelerator that has hosted more than 280 startup week programs in 140 cities worldwide.
