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Employee-Owned Innovation

How NewBoCo’s Intrapreneur Academy Helps Van Meter Inc. For the past six years, the Des Moines Register has named Van Meter Inc. as one of Iowa’s top places to work through a survey based completely on employee feedback. In a press release regarding this win, Van Meter CEO Lura McBride

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Leslie Wright, a woman with short grey hair, looks off into the distance. The United Way logo is visible in the background

Making Nonprofit Innovation Sustainable

How NewBoCo’s Intrapreneur Academy Helps United Way of East Central Iowa  Even 10 years after the fact, it’s still impossible to escape discussion about the 2008 flood in Cedar Rapids. When Ben Kaplan and I went over to United Way of East Central Iowa’s office to talk about their experience

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A man and a young girl stand a table ripping apart a computer's keyboard

NewBoCo’s Summer 2018 Updates

It may have been a hot one this summer, but your support for NewBoCo made some pretty ~cool~ things happen! NewBoCo: Proudly brought to you by bad jokes and unlimited coffee! But seriously though. Support from our volunteers, donors, and sponsors made it possible for: Standing room only at EntreFEST

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People sit in rows of white tables at an Intrapreneur Academy Workshop. Linn County Auditor Joel Miller and Deputy Director of Elections Rebecca Stonawski sit at the front table.

Voting for Innovation

How NewBoCo’s Intrapreneur Academy Helps the Linn County Auditor’s Office The Linn County Auditor’s office is no stranger to software issues. “I thought I was done with IT when I left the private sector” said Linn County Auditor Joel Miller. “Turns out I’m right back in it.” Over the past

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Frank Camp, NewBoCo General Counsel, sits at a table with two women working on a startup

Corridor Angel Investors Selects Startups for August Meeting

July 24, 2018, Cedar Rapids, IA – After reviewing 20 applications, Corridor Angel Investors (CAI), Eastern Iowa’s accredited angel group, selected two Eastern Iowa-based startups to pitch at their August 2nd meeting. “We have two great Iowa companies who will pitch at this meeting, each in different industries: biotech and

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Two men from Woofables give a presentation in a well lit room. The man on the left has his hand raised while speaking.

Intrapreneur Academy: Kickoff Recap

“Innovation” rarely brings to mind visions of local government, but the Office of the Linn County Auditor plans to change that. They joined five other teams in NewBoCo’s inaugural Intrapreneur Academy. “We joined Intrapreneur Academy because we want to set an example that innovation can occur in local government so

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A group of 23 teachers stand on a staircase at Iowa State University for a picture during NewBoCo's professional development training

32 Teachers Graduate from NewBoCo’s Inaugural Computer Science Professional Learning Program

Teachers representing both large and small school districts across the state of Iowa officially completed their training with NewBoCo’s Computer Science Professional Learning Program earlier this month. The program, made possible through a partnership with Code.org, a national nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to computer science education, provides professional development

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Mandy Webber presents to participants of Intrapreneur Academy seated in front of her.

Our First Quarter of 2018

Updates on NewBoCo’s work in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Education. On April 13 NewBoCo launched Intrapreneur Academy. Photo by Ben Kaplan. Once again, Iowa was at the bottom of Wallethub’s yearly study on the most innovative states. Last year, we were 44th, and now in 2018, we’ve slipped to 46th. Wallethub looked

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A group of five people gather around a table discussing agile

Ask the Agile Pros: Help! Is Agile Only for Software Teams?

Hey Agile Pros—  We’ve been hearing a lot about Agile in the news, and it sounds like it could solve a lot of the problems our organization is facing right now. However, all of the advice about Agile is for software development teams. Can we be Agile if we’re not

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NewBoCo Volunteer Asmaa Elkeurti works with a student on a laptop for NewBoCo's Girls Code Camp

Volunteer Spotlight: Asmaa Elkeurti

“I firmly believe anyone can learn computer science.” — Asmaa Elkeurti After graduating from the University of Iowa in 2016, Asmaa Elkeurti became a developer at Pear Deck, an Iowa City-based education startup offering a web-based application to K-12 schools and teachers, and a regular volunteer for NewBoCo’s K-12 computer science education programs.

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