KC Kauffman Foundation's Entrepreneurial Fever Sweeps Planet

KC Kauffman Foundation's Entrepreneurial Fever Sweeps Planet

by Tom Chaffer, founder of Seed Revival and Atomsound LLC, husband, papa and author of plain sense writings.

This morning I took particular pleasure, as I almost always do, in reading the Wistia.com weekly email. I was tickled by their comment,

"We thought that making videos would expose us for who we really were: four scared people sitting above a framing store trying to figure out how to get traction and not give away the fact that we had no idea what we were doing."

That SO expresses my feelings about the entrepreneurial journey.

Shawn Daugherty of KansasCityShock.com and Kyle Rogers of Knoda.co (no m!) present at 1MillionCups Jan. 8, 2014

What I'm finding out at 50, as one of the oldest app-preneurial-startup-types I know… is that the fever that typifies the spirit of an innovator is insatiable.

I've imbibed in my first Global Entrepreneurship Week, the chart-topping initiative of Kansas City's Kauffman Foundation, and I have to say my eyes are now wide open to the opportunity and wellspring of invention and enterprise available to me and to everyone reading in 2014.

Having successfully imbibed in my first Global Entrepreneurship Week (gew.co), the chart-topping initiative sparked into being by Kansas City's Kauffman Foundation, I have to say… my eyes are now wide open to the opportunity and wellspring of invention and enterprise available to me and to everyone reading in 2014. And it all springs forth from right here in my home town, the heart of America - Kansas City - now one of the world's fastest-rising startup cities.

As Jonathan Ortmans, President of Global Entrepreneurship Week in Washington DC says in this introductory video, it helps you "learn about whether or not - at some point in your life, you may have the interest and the skill to be able to join a startup."

 

More info:  gew.co/about - unleashingideas.org

Ortmans continues,

"Now we think entrepreneurs might be the force for change in their countries for things beyond just economic change - that they can actually make the world a better place… The possibility of human endeavor for the benefit of all."

A total of 138 countries hosted  Global Entrepreneurship Week events in November of 2013, with videos, tweets and posts lighting up the hashtags - #gew - and search engines, startup-fever ran high throughout the week - especially here at the ideological "ground zero," my own Kansas City.

The highlight for me was at an amazing "card-swap" event at Global Prairie where Shelly Kramer - v3im.com, twitter.com/shellykramer - who spoke to the ever critical "fever-space" of digital marketing and how innovators can create customers and build buzz with these powerful social platforms. Her story of self-discovery was raw and inspiring, encouraging us to take the bold chances on authentic and yet targeted engagement on Twitter and Facebook and beyond.

I've experienced with my own startup Twitter account, twitter.com/seedrevival, that it is, by far, my hottest spot for my own startup dream - especially for interacting with the thought-leaders in our space.

The Seed Revival team, like Wistia's wistful beginnings, also consists of four scared innovators hanging out in a (virtual) room above a "framing" shop where we individually work hard to pay the bills with our online and telecommuting family businesses.

The ancient art of seed collecting and the human right to keep these seeds without cost has been all but stolen from the citizens of Earth by massive corporate conglomerates who would "patent" ancient genetics as if it were a morally acceptable thing to do. So these "four scared people" have caught the entrepreneurial fever from our sense of urgency to answer the looming planet-wide seed crisis. The "GMOs" (genetically modified organisms - seeds with poison in them, basically) are nothing more than tiny, poisonous destroyers of these two pillars seed harvesting and seed keeping.

By the same grace that packs abundance into every untainted seed, we will do something about it.

Add to the GMO nastiness mono-cropping, heavy tillage and a generally broken agricultural system which was spawned by massive corporate greed and you can see why the Earth's nutrients have stripped from the soil and massive deforestation is washing away what's left.

With this scenario in mind, t's easy to see why activists are "cropping" up all over the place!

We are calling people across the Americas and around the world to fully realize the ancient wisdom of free and unaltered seeds for farmers and gardeners alike. The nutrition and health of all the world's children are truly at stake and we are driven by the fact. Seed Revival's mobile hub proposes to move quickly on this growing niche of urban, suburban and rural gardeners and farmers who have both small and large stakes in the "seed-time and harvest" fight for the future.

The plants that feed the world have been in the gene pool from the beginning of time and have a masterful genetic complexity that needs no fixing at all!

Whether its because of the very real threat of non-tested "GMO's" or the looming economy crisis, we are positioning ourselves to answer the questions, make the connections and sell the goods that, truly, "make the world go 'round."

Watch out for another set of "four scared people." We recognize the stewardship of the entrepreneurship spirit and are running with it.