Emporia Main Street Director Casey Woods sees the debut of the K-State 105 Entrepreneurial Blueprint Initiative — and Main Street’s involvement — as exciting, but also possibly transformational for entrepreneurs.
Main Street’s Fabrication Lab will get a technology upgrade as part of this new venture, following a year where the Fab Lab had product output jump over 40 percent last year.
The partnerships are meant to develop businesses through work in four categories:
*Job creation, including entrepreneurship training, start-up support, economic development planning and business attraction
*Capital and equity investment, with items like financial products, loan and equity programs, partner matching funds and help facilitating investor connections
*Business development, including consulting, financial projections, prototype development, licensing and registration
*Technical assistance and workforce development, like grant writing, housing assessments, childcare coaching, community assessments and educational workshops
This new venture also includes Network Kansas, K-State Research and Extension and higher education institutions across Kansas as a way to support small business development and entrepreneurship. Participants were selected through a competitive process, including an application review.
More information is available at k-state.edu/105. Woods will be KVOE’s Newsmaker guest at 7:20 am Monday.
1 pm Tuesday: Emporia Main Street fabrication lab named one of 11 community projects included in inaugural K-State 105 Entrepreneurial Blueprint Initiative
An Emporia entity known for its support and promotion of entrepreneurship is among one of several entities involved in the first cohort of a new initiative focused on providing the exact same support across the state.
It was announced Monday that Kansas State University and Network Kansas are partnering with communities across the state for 11 collaborative community-based projects as part of the first-ever K-State 105 Entrepreneurial Blueprint Initiative cohort. K-State 105 Director Jessica Gnad stated in a recent news release, “The K-State 105 Entrepreneurial Blueprint Initiative is an example of a next-generation land-grant university in action – we’re bringing people and partners together to co-develop new and innovative ways to support entrepreneurs and small businesses across Kansas. In a way, we’re co-creating blueprints that can guide future work for economic growth in Kansas. We’re so excited to work alongside these 11 project collaborators in our first cohort.”
Among the cohort is Emporia Main Street, specifically the fabrication lab which will see an update in technology thanks to the initiative. In a recent social media post on Main Street’s Facebook page, Main Street expressed excitement for its involvement in the initiative saying, “The resources and access to support will continue to push product-based development in the area.”
The announcement comes as the fabrication lab had a busy 2024 with product output up by 45 percent from 2023. Main Street Director Casey Woods will join KVOE’s Primetime Newsmaker at 7:20 am Monday to discuss the initiative in greater detail.
