Techweek Tuesday: Gearing up for LaunchKC vote

Tuesday marks the second day of the seven-day Techweek in Kansas City and a good starting point for the big event coming Friday.

The day’s schedule centers on a three-hour tour of tech-friendly workplaces in the area. It leaves from Union Station and requires an attendee pass, available online. A happy hour follows.

This also is a good time to start learning about the 20 start up businesses competing for $500,000 in funding though LaunchKC. Techweek holds judging for the finals Friday.

One of the 10 winners – each of which receives $50,000 – will be a People’s Choice winner selected by popular votes, with nine others chosen by a panel of judges.

That means you have 20 businesses to get to know by Friday so you won’t be hit cold when they do their presentations to the judges on Friday.

To get you started, we’ve visited with two of the 20.

Video Fizz founder Laura Steward has created an app that easily compiles short video messages from family, friends and others you include, and then sends the combined greeting to the celebrant on your schedule.

The Kansas City Drone Co. is developing commercial uses for drones using skills that founder Casey Adams picked up as a U.S. Department of Defense contractor in Afghanistan and other locations.

We had introduced readers to two other finalists this spring with a roundup on Kansas City’s start up season.

PopBookings was part of the SparkLabKC Accelerator and its CEO Erika Klotz explained the Kansas City company as like Uber for staffing a promotional event.

The other was a New York-based business now called Vertisense that developed Alcohoot, a breathalyzer app that uses your mobile phone or tablet. CEO Chris Ayala gave us this demonstration while at the Sprint Accelerator in Kansas City.

As for the others, you can visit their websites, such as this one for Kansas City-based Integrated Roadways that has a video of prefabricated roadway with built-in sensors being laid in place.

You can like their Facebook pages or read their blogs, including Rashad Sanders’ from the Boston-based finalist called Loadlytics whose software helps trucking companies.

You can find them on Youtube, where Ulytic posted a video that the Columbia, Mo.-based company produced to explain its urban analytics technology.

Some are active on Twitter, including social debate site Squareoffs that is based in Kansas City, Kan., which gives you time to follow them until the big day hits.

Here are the other finalists:

▪ Appbase: Siddharth Kothari, Pittsburgh

▪ Blooom: Chris Costello, Overland Park

▪ CBG Technologies: Ben Rao, Lee’s Summit

▪ Edge Up Sports: Ilya Tabakh, Kansas City

▪ HealthID: Angelo Pitassi Jr., Cranston, R.I.

▪ LaborChart: Ben Schultz, Overland Park

▪ Mobility Designed LLC: Liliana Younger, Roeland Park

▪ Nodal Security: Marcus Eagan, Detroit

▪ Ovatemp: Daniel Graf, Kansas City

▪ Pycno: Nikita Gulin, Santiago, Chile

▪ SkillGravity: Alina Kharina, San Francisco

▪ Virtutecture: Tracy Ford, Lee’s Summit

Now you have your homework. Later this week, we’ll let you how to catch those 20 finalists’ presentations and cast your vote.

This story was originally published September 14, 2015 at 5:08 PM with the headline "Techweek Tuesday: Gearing up for LaunchKC vote."