Welcome to FinTech TV.
Kansas City is aiming to be a national leader in digital innovation, and nonprofit KC Digital Drive is at the center of that push.
Founded after KC became the first Google fiber city, the organization works to close the digital divide, as well as foster tech innovation and make emerging technology accessible.
Now through public. partnerships and a focus on equity, education, and economic opportunity.
KC Digital Drive is helping to shape the future locally and globally.
Joining me here at the New York Stock Exchange is Jim Starte, program manager of innovation and entrepreneurship at KC Digital Drive.
Well, Jim, great to have you here.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you.
It's very nice to be with you and on the floor this morning.
Well, for our viewers out there who might not be familiar with the Heartland, tell us a little bit about KC Digital and what makes it unique.
So you know, and I'm a born and raised Kansas City person and I actually started my first tech business in financial services 25 years ago, most of the date.
So I've been in the tech scene and the financial services scene for Kansas City for Long time it's an interesting mix, you know, for the digital lead as we said, you mentioned the highlights that you know Google Fiber picked us as the initial city when they launched that, which really helped generate, I think a lot of innovation coming out of it.
We've always been kind of a little bit of a quiet powerhouse in financial services with companies like DST, H&R.
Lock American Century headquartered, as well as some of the largest wealth managers in the country, Mariner and Creative Planning, I think are two of the five largest around.
So we have a lot of talent in the financial services, and it's a natural move over into the digital assets and what's happening with blockchains, we have a lot of different innovation that is really kicking off of that.
Yeah, and Jim, when we take a step back and look at what's changed in the past quarter of a century, 25 years, a lot has changed when we're talking about that intersection of finance as well as technology.
So when we're talking about Kansas City and that region in particular, give us an idea of how policy, innovation and capital are aligning right now.
Yeah, so that's a great question.
You know, policy is always a challenge, I think for any community.
And Kansas City has a little bit of a struggle with policy because we are a true bi-state area.
Half of Kansas City is on one side of the state, half the other, so we deal with policies of two different states as well as, you know, federal policy and everything else.
So at times it's a little bit interesting to navigate, but I think both.
I was meeting with the Kansas Department of Commerce last week talking about how they're continuing to grow their policy to really encourage innovation and to bring capital in.
We have, I would say in the last 10 years really extended the amount of capital.
We've had quite a few new venture capital funds that have been created to really grow and help that area.
Yeah, and when we're talking about public private partnerships, give us an understanding of the role that this plays.
And this place is in the digital assets or us as the digital drive, so you know on the that role on that is kind of interesting because as I said, the private I'm not answering this question very well.
I'm sorry I'm really thinking through that.
So you know, from the private partner partnerships with that, it's bringing up together a lot because we also deal a lot with the universities which kind of cross that into that.
We've got a lot of the public companies that are really trying to to grow their foothold and you know, obviously we have civic organizations.
Such as the Kansas City Area Development Corporation that is really attracting talent as one of the big scores of late was, you know, a New York-based company being MISer just announced that their new innovation office, they're moving close to 2000 employees into Kansas City and to bring that in was a great example of kind of that public-private partnership coming together to really highlight that.
Yeah, and Jim, of course you and your team have been working hard in preparation of HEX, correct?
So we have.
Give us an idea of why KC Digital Drive decided to co-produce this and what people can't expect.
Yeah, so we've been involved in the whole digital assets scene for a while, really probably going back almost 10 years in different formats.
A couple of years ago we got involved with helping to stand up a new Dow in Kansas City, so that started to attract. gained some really national and global attention to what was happening in the heartland and so we thought the best way to really, you know, to move that forward was to host a conference.
So about 6 months ago we started planning in the Heartland Digital Asset Exchange and had just a really great response of different people from really across the country wanting to come in, wanting to be part of it, as well as the native Kansas Cians that are part of it.
So we've been excited we've been.
This is a great step, as we said.
It is our first annual, but our plan is for this to be an annual conference that really starts highlighting some of the excitement that's happening in the Midwest.
Yeah, and I understand some heavyweights are going to be attending, so give us a sneak peek.
Yeah, well, you know, some of our keynote speakers, Esther George, who was the president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank is one of our keynote speakers.
Grant Cardone is coming in to talk really.
About the intersection of real estate and blockchain, Anthony Vasili from Coinbase, Parth from Fidelity Labs talking about their new stablecoin and some of the direction they're going with it, as well as I said, a host of we have close to 20, I think other speakers that we are, we are cramming into one very, very packed day conference.
Well Jim, it was great having you here at the New York Stock Exchange.
Good luck with the event and I look forward to updates.
OK, thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
