Congratulations to Mayor Sly James for being named one of the “Most Innovative Mayors” in the country by Newsweek Magazine. The Mayor is credited with shaping the entrepreneurial infrastructure that is fueling the growth of tech start-ups in Kansas City. Mayor Sly James’s vision of building “Silicon Prairie” took a quantum leap forward when he successfully lobbied Google to partner with Kansas City in an exclusive test of its ultrahigh-speed fiber network, giving residents access to Internet service 100 times faster than average broadband speeds across the country. As a result, new businesses and entrepreneurs are already starting to come to our Midwestern tech mecca. James helped create the environment for this investment by embracing local tech startups and a business incubator that crowd-funds companies. James transitioned his City Hall office entirely to cloud computing and open-sourced the development of a new downtown streetcar project. These investments have already helped spur a resurgence in the downtown population, expanding the tax base while improving the quality of life. “Partnerships pay dividends,” James says. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Read the full store HERE
