Benno Schmidt, the interim president and CEO of the Kansas City, Mo.-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska headline a group of speakers slated to talk today at the Kauffman Foundation's third annual State of Entrepreneurship Address in Washington, D.C. 

The event is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Central Time and continue for 90 minutes, and a live stream is available.

To watch the proceedings tune in here: www.visualwebcaster.com

We'll update this post soon with plenty more details about the event and some reports on the state of entrepreneurship in the United States that the Kauffman Foundation just released, so stay tuned.

Lincoln mayor Chris Beutler (at podium) was joined by (from left) Bradley Walker of Nanonation, Ben Kiser of NelNet and Bruce Bohrer of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce for today's announcement.

Unite Private Networks and the City of Lincoln will form a joint public-private partnership to place a grid of telecommunication fiber in downtown Lincoln.

Lincoln mayor Chris Beutler outlined the plan during a press conference today, where he said that the city will finance a grid of conduits that will ultimately hold fiber from Unite and be open to any other communication company. The city will own the conduit, and Unite will maintain it. Any telecommunication service providers will be able to install fiber in the conduit.

The mayor is proposing to the City Council that the city fund the $600,000 conduit project with Fast Forward funds. Fast Forward funding is set aside for infrastructure projects that help drive economic development and job creation.

"My goal is to keep Lincoln among the most competitive economies not only in Nebraska, not only in the United States, but the entire world," Beutler said. "Today’s announcement will stamp Lincoln, Neb. as a national leader in critical communication infrastructure and further our goal of being a city that can compete with anyone, anytime, anywhere. It will be a game-changer.”

At the press conference, Beutler outlined some of the anticipated benefits of new fiber for Lincoln:

• Increasing competition for internet services, creating pressure for lower prices and expanded services.
• Providing critical redundancy for businesses that depend on internet service.
• Enabling the city government to implement new technology aimed at saving taxpayers money.
• Allowing the city to preserve an existing investment by installing the conduits this spring, when crews are already scheduled to re-surface downtown streets.

Bruce Bohrer, executive vice president and general counsel for the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, said that the Lincoln Partnership of Economic Development conducts yearly business conditions surveys and in 2010 the business community articulated having challenges with Lincoln’s capability for high-speed internet access. Bohrer also talked about what this type of project does for existing businesses in Lincoln and also for attracting new businesses to the city.

“The installation of conduit will encourage further development of the telecommunication and high speed fiber capabilities of Lincoln, which will in turn solve the specific problems with downtime and system reliability experienced by businesses now," Bohrer said. "This type of investment by the city will become another highlight as we showcase this community to companies considering Lincoln as a place to expand.”

Bohrer also said that with additional investment that may occur as a result of the project, business owners can anticipate that the entire city will see increased options, which will hopefully create lower costs.

The project has the potential to provide benefit to all business sizes throughout the entire city, according to Jason Ball, director of business development with the Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development. “The up-front capital investment required for a dedicated high-speed fiber line is typically cost prohibitive for small and medium sized businesses," Ball said. "Having a conduit grid in the downtown area will significantly reduce capital investment costs for providers and downtown business.”

Ball said that even if a business would not require that much capacity, this project will still provide businesses more carrier choice options, a more redundant system and over time should reduce cost of service through competition. He anticipates impact of the project will be felt city-wide. “The eventual addition of a carrier neutral hotel would leverage the investment the city is making and provide these benefits to the entire city," Ball said, "not just the downtown.“

The resolution to use the Fast Forward Fund will require approval from the Lincoln City Council and will be put to a vote later this month.

Disclosure: Kate Ellingson, is the marketing and media manager for the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce.

Image credit: Photo by Kate Ellingson.

As you may be aware, the anticipated and recently rumored Series B funding news broke this week for the good folks at Dwolla in Des Moines. This round totalled $5 million and was not only raised out-of-Iowa but out-of-Silicon Prairie, with money coming in from both coasts.

As rumored, the round was led by New York-based Union Square Ventures. Union Square, and its principal Fred Wilson (left), are two of the most well-known names in nation's startup community, touting a number of notable investments in hot internet startups, such as Etsy, foursquare, Kickstarter, Zynga, Tumblr, Turntable.fm, Twilio and Twitter.

As we saw with the startup's Series A round in 2010, founder Ben Milne has been very strategic in the amount of capital he takes and who he takes it from. The Veridian Group and The Members Group (the two Series A investors) provide as much value from their partnership as they do with their cash. There was no shortage of choices for this round, as Milne told me in the fall and Business Insider later reported that the company managed a spreadsheet with more than 700 investors who were interested in participating at some level.

Dwolla's leadership team chose USV to lead the round and I believe it is purposeful for three main reasons:

1. Investor name and credibility

While Wilson himself didn't join the board – his associate Albert Wenger did – he'll still lend his star investor fame to Dwolla's operation. He has around 115,000 RSS subscribers and an average of 10,000 visitors per day to his blog, "A VC," along with 200,000 Twitter followers. It didn't take long, a day after the raise was announced he was already blogging about the payments startup including this call to action:

While I don't have access to Dwolla's analytics, I'm guessing that was a fairly successful referral link.

2. Access to portfolio companies

If you follow Wilson, you likely know that USV does not require portfolio companies to work together. He wrote an informative post about his philosophy back in 2010 and in the comments on his post yesterday which was also about Etsy, he directly answered a question of when Dwolla will become a payment option on Etsy: 

Regardless, in the 2010 post he did note that he'll make introductions between portfolio companies if he sees a strategic fit. How could Dwolla not be salivating at the idea of becoming a payment option in the aforementioned Etsy (800,000 active shops as of July 2011 - Etsy), Kickstarter (over 1 million individual backers as of October 2011 - kickstarter.com) or Zynga (236 million active monthly users as of the first quarter of 2011 - Mashable)? Obtaining users in large chunks, rather than one-by-one has been part of Dwolla's growth strategy for awhile (see the FiSync product).

On a related note, Dwolla's fanatical following in Des Moines is very organic and very personal to the role they play in this community. We haven’t seen them scale that level of engagement around the country, yet, and by aligning with much beloved companies in other markets, like those in the USV portfolio, there's another tactic to push on.

3. Dwolla wants to go big

Simply put, USV is the big time, it's "the show." Dwolla is now playing with the big boys and they're doing it in a way that few others in the area are. This means that expectations are now higher and that performance and growth will all be measured differently. I think Dwolla wants that and they want to be held to the higher standard. I asked Milne (left) back in February 2010, on the second episode of PrairieCast, why he'd ever pursue such a project as Dwolla. He said simply that sometimes, "If you want to go big, you have to go big."

I think having financial backing from USV is a very visible sign of Dwolla taking the next step on the ladder of "go(ing) big."

Part 2: The second portion of this two-part opinion piece, "Dwolla's Series B: Three things it means for Des Moines (Part 2)", will appear on Silicon Prairie News this week.

Image credit: Photo of Fred Wilson courtesy of Union Square Ventures. Screenshots from avc.com. Photo of Ben Milne by Anna Jones | Art of Photography.

About the author: Geoff Wood is the COO and main connection point in Iowa for Silicon Prairie News, an organization working to increase the notability of the Silicon Prairie region – Des Moines, Omaha, Kansas City and surrounding area – as an innovation center and startup hub. In addition to a daily news blog, the Silicon Prairie News team also produces events like Thinc Iowa and Big Omaha. Wood helps organize Barcamp Des Moines and DSM Startup Drinks.

You can contact Geoff at geoff@siliconprairienews.com or find him on Twitter, @geoffwood.

"You don't have to go to a page of search results any more," Mike Farmer (below), founder of Leap2, said in a phone interview on Saturday, "you can go direct to the website or the social page, whatever you want."

Leap2's Android release brings the app an updated design, increased speed and implemented voice-to-web technology,* which are enhancements that will soon be mirrored on its iPhone app following approval by Apple (though iPhone voice integration won't come right away).

Along with the app release, Leap2 had closed a $280,000 seed round of funding. Last July, Farmer raised $80,000 from friends and family and put up money himself to get the app off the ground. By year's end, he had brought in another $200,000 from some of the previous investors, three new investors and himself.

The new investors, all in the Kansas City area, include Thad Langford, founder of Zave Networks (acquired by Google in September) and a former Sprint executive; Aaron McKee, vice president at GroundTruth and former Infospace director and Sprint executive; and an un-named partner at OpenAir Equity Partners, a Kansas City venture capital and private equity firm solely focused on the wireless, communications and mobile internet sectors.

"(Leap2 has) just an absolute incredible group of investors," Farmer said, "who have been there and done that and are in the office all the time, rolling up their sleeves and getting involved."

Though it might look small, Leap2's biggest design update was to move its category wheel from the side to the middle of the app. The feature is core to the app, as it allows users to sort between different types of results, such as websites, social media accounts, maps and a category Farmer said has been a popular one amongst the app's nearly 3,000 users, the local category. The app's search results are primarily pulled from Microsoft Bing's API.

"iOS threw us a real curveball right before we released our product," Leap2 founder Mike Farmer said about his app's category wheel. "What they released with iOS 5 was incredible … but one of the big issues that we had was (when) people would pull down the wheel, they would pull down the iOS alerts."

In addition to Farmer, the Leap2 team is made up of two full-time and four part-time developer contractors, a majority of which are located in the Kansas City area.

Looking forward, Leap2, which Farmer now calls a "Search Browser," will be adding components to the app to bring in revenue, as it's currently free to download and has no advertisements or in-app purchases.

"With this new version, we're really at the point to go get the users," Farmer said, "I mean really go after users with spending a lot of money on marketing and consumer acquisition."

Here's a demo video of the new app on iPhone, a release that's expected to happen in the coming week.

Image credits: Photo of Mike Farmer from Leap2 on Facebook. Screenshots from leap2.com.

Update 10:20: See Mike Farmer's note in comments about Leap2's voice-to-web technology.

Name: Lyndsay Clark

Bio: A Des Moines native with entrepreneurial parents responsible for raising me with a strong work ethic and passion to build things. Constantly looking to listen and learn — from what music I should queue up to a great book or blog I should be reading.

Title: Lead Interactive Designer at Hatchlings

Age: 24

City: Des Moines, Iowa

Website: hatchlings.com

Twitter: @lyndsayclark

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/lyndsayclark/

Intro music: I may be partial (my brother is in the band), but I can’t get enough of St. Lucia’s "We Got It Wrong."

Silicon Prairie News: You joined Hatchlings during what CEO Brad Dwyer calls a "re-startup" phase for the company. What does that mean to you, and how do you see it manifested on a daily basis?

Lyndsay Clark: In every sense of the word Hatchlings has been successful so far — to date we’re completely self-funded (after an initial $100 personal investment) and we have over 3 million users from all 50 states and almost every country in the world, among other things. I think we are now uniquely positioned to build a great company. With four years of user feedback and experience, our goals now include building the best team we can while continuing to build amazing products. In the short time I’ve been there, we’ve worked long hours and weekends, but, in the end, it’s that passion to build that excites us every day of the week.

SPN: Hatchlings has 260,000-plus likes on Facebook, the most commented-on story in SPN history and users who travel hours to attend meetups. What is it about Hatchlings that makes its users so passionate?

LC: What Brad has done brilliantly with Hatchlings is capture the essence of collecting and gifting. I think our dedicated users may have collected baseball cards, coins or even dolls as kids. With this game they’ve found the opportunity to rekindle their passion to collect and also share with others what they’ve gathered so far. We’ve seen friendships develop across the globe because of this sharing and gifting mentality, and I believe that’s really the core reason why our users are so dedicated to Hatchlings.

SPN: A couple years after graduating with a degree in interior design, you're now doing UX/UI design. Can you describe that transition and the challenges involved?

LC: Early on I recognized that what I loved about interior design was the creative brainstorming and team aspect, but not the actual career itself. I eventually became very interested in technology and web design and knew it was the direction I wanted to pursue. Once I realized this I found myself struggling with two hurdles: 1) where to go to get the career I wanted as well as 2) developing the right skills. I began educating myself as well as attending Design+Tech (organized by Amanda Morrow from BitMethod) and keeping up on what was happening in the Silicon Prairie. This allowed me to meet some great people who have helped me get to where I am now.

SPN: You've blogged about the power of music to influence your mood. Tell us your go-to songs or albums in the following circumstances: the gym; the dance floor; the office; when you're looking to kick a bad mood; when you're looking to kick back and relax.

LC: At the gym and on the dance floor, I love me some Nicki Minaj, Rihanna and Kanye. While at the office though, I do a 180. If I’m working on strategy or writing, I usually stick with the likes of Dave Brubeck or Billie Holiday, and while designing I’ll listen to music such as Monarchy, Robyn, Ellie Goulding … it’s common to find me dancing in my chair at work. To kick a bad mood or just relax I usually turn on my Starred Playlist on Spotify and listen to the tunes I can’t get enough of currently.

SPN: As an Arrested Development fan, which member of the Bluth bunch would you say you're most similar to, and why?

LC: This is a tough one, they all have qualities I so admire. I guess if I compared myself to any of them I’d say Tobias’ love for the Blue Man Group and his ability to sing a little tune whenever he gets a wee bit scared really align with who I am as an individual.

Image credit: Photo by Kyle Knicley.

Prairie Portraits: To learn more about this series, see our introduction post, or visit our archives for past Prairie Portraits. To suggest an individual for a future Prairie Portrait, contact editor@siliconprairienews.com.

The foursquare list that helped Des Moines win a city badge features 29 locations throughout Iowa's capitol city.

Been there. Done that. Have the foursquare badge.

For folks that make the rounds in Des Moines, that's now a possibility, thanks to a grassroots effort led by Chris Snider and his students at Drake University. 

foursquare announced today that Des Moines is one of five cities nationwide that earned its own badge in the foursquare city badge contest. foursquare, the popular, location-based mobile app that's a social network and rewards platform, last month challenged people to create and then publicize lists of the top spots in their respective cities, promising the three towns with the best entries would earn badges of their own. foursquare wound up awarding five badges, recognizing Baltimore, Richmond, Va., Stamford, Conn. and Oklahoma City in addition to Des Moines. 

foursquare provided the following explanation for why Des Moines was a winner: 

We were super impressed by this Des Moines city list made by Drake University's Social Media Strategies Class. They joined forces to write a bunch of great tips, got the word out, and got over 250 followers. Their list features fairgrounds, zombie burger joints, delicious cornbread and more.

The list includes 29 Des Moines locales, ranging from the State Capitol and State Fairground to myriad cafes, coffee shops, restaurants and watering holes. The check-in connoisseurs behind the list were Snider and the students in his Social Media Strategies class, who brainstormed, crowdsourced and created what they dubbed "a list of things you’ve gotta do in Des Moines."

Next up for the group? Why, helping pick the particulars of the Des Moines badge, of course.

Image credit: Map from foursquare.com.

Episode 73: The one with Mike and Mike in the Afternoon

Not one but two Mikes joined us this week on PrairieCast. Mike Colwell, director of the Business Innovation Zone in Des Moines and Mike Ferrari, co-founder of SmartyPig (now Social Money Systems) both sit in to discuss the big news that broke early on show day, Dwolla's $5M Series B raise, as well as the recent news from SmartyPig including a name change, new products and new leadership. 

Fast Four

This week on the Fast Four we take a look at the Kauffman Foundation's Super Bowl ad, Scott Case's comments about entrpreneurship in Iowa in the Washington Post, the Iowa Startup Fair, and an extremely played out internet meme that reached the Silicon Prairie.

Andy's Stat of the Week

This week the Stat is 3,618,115. What's does it mean? Join us on PrairieCast to find out!

Looking for more information on the show? Check out our Facebook page: facebook.com/prairiecast.

PrairieCast is a live podcast, recorded weekly, for which a group of entrepreneurs gather to discuss current issues in technology and business that relate to the startup community on the Silicon Prairie. PrairieCast is hosted by Andy Brudtkuhl of 48Web and Geoff Wood of Silicon Prairie News.

PrairieCast is brought to you by Delta Dental of Iowa

When it comes to taking care of your smile, rely on a company you can trust. Fact is … more Iowans trust their smiles to Delta Dental. Whether you are looking for a dental policy for you, your family, or the team at your Startup, visit DeltaDentalIA.com to learn more about your many plan options.

Colleagues say it's no surprise for Ben Sinclair to return from a slow weekend with news of new app he built on a whim. "I like to build stuff that I want," Sinclair says. 

If it’s Friday and it’s lunchtime and Ben Sinclair isn’t at Performance Marketing’s West Des Moines offices, it’s a pretty safe bet where he is instead. He’s making a beeline to the buffet line.

Mind you, he’s not there for the fare — Sinclair gives the food a review that’s lukewarm at best — but to satisfy another appetite.

“The food isn’t the best,” Sinclair said. “But it’s mainly an excuse to get together and talk about radio stuff.”

Sinclair, 33, is a developer of Web and mobile applications by trade. But the West Des Moines native and Valley High School grad can’t seem to shake the hobby that leads him to spend many a Friday lunch break at the buffet with other members of a local ham radio club.

“It’s kind of nerdy, but I’m a ham radio operator,” he said. “That’s always been pretty much a ‘build your own stuff’ experiment, a ‘do things that have never been done’ kind of hobby.”

Though Sinclair’s slightly sheepish in discussing the pastime, it gets to the core of what makes him tick. He is driven by what he calls a “hacker spirit,” a desire to figure out the inner workings of a thing, and then make that thing work. “I’m always tinkering with stuff,” he said. “I’m always building things.”

That’s an attribute that serves Sinclair well in his day job and his non-9-to-5 pursuits.

By day, Sinclair is a developer at Shift Interactive. Shift, which Sinclair helped establish in 2010 as the interactive arm of Performance Marketing, gained additional autonomy on Jan. 1, when it officially became a fully owned subsidiary of Performance.

Shift made the move to cater better to clients that need interactive work done but aren’t interested in the full raft of services Performance offers. As Shift pursues those customers, Sinclair said the company will look to grow from a staff of four to a team of around 20. Matt Glynn, Sinclair’s partner in the new operation, said Sinclair is well-suited for the new challenge.

“Figuring (new things) out is … part of the adventure for him,” Glynn said. “And he needs that because the agency world is very repeatable, or can be — you know, (handling) the same set of issues a little bit differently.

“That’s why the Shift world really works for him.”

Sinclair and Shift work with a stable of national and local clients that includes Hyperion Books, the University of Iowa, the Greater Des Moines Partnership and Dwolla. So, at times, doing a project for a client can give Sinclair an experience similar to working for a startup.

“Our flows and visions change, which seems hourly sometimes,” said Dwolla’s James Armstead, who has worked closely with Sinclair on the company’s iPhone app, “and Ben always embraces those changes and has never pushed back when making those changes. A true nerd wants to dominate everything he does.”

"… Ben always embraces those changes and has never pushed back when making those changes. A true nerd wants to dominate everything he does.” - James Armstead

But Sinclair really flexes his hacker muscle working on his own projects. He’s had a hand in several startups, and he sold one (online public résumé service BigSight.org) in 2009. Currently, he’s working on Uppward, a flight-based social application. Sinclair said Uppward, which rewards users for accumulating airline miles and connects them with other passengers on their flights, is experiencing exponential growth in terms of users.

Beyond that, Sinclair has been known to turn a slow Saturday into an excuse for building a new iPhone app. “He’ll come back from the weekend and be, like, ‘Hey, look, I made some crazy game because I was bored,’ ” Glynn said.

So Sinclair’s curiosity may occasionally lead him to restaurants that fall somewhere short of five-star. But, more importantly, that hacker spirit keeps him learning and building all the time.

“I do a few personal iPhone apps in the store — they’re actually mostly ham radio related,” he said, laughing. “If you haven’t noticed I’m a huge nerd. But that’s something I enjoy. I like to build stuff that I want, so that’s how those apps came about. You know, ‘I wish I had an app that did this,’ so I build it.”

Editor's note: This article also appears in this week's issue of Juice magazine. To learn more about our partnership with Juice, see our post: "Announcing our partnership with Juice."

Image credits: Photos by Eric Rowley/Juice.