Press from BIG's Silicon Valley Research Trip
Friday, May 30, 2014 
Photo courtesy of Vicki Thompson from the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
Eleven BIG employees returned home from a research trip to Silicon Valley this past Memorial Day. During this trip, we visited companies such as Google, StartX, Medallia, and NetApp. The main objective of this trip was to learn more about Silicon Valley's innovative culture to see how Wichita can diversify its economy through entrepreneurship by Silicon Valley's example.
Throughout this trip, BIG worked with the Wichita Business Journal, and through these efforts obtained a great deal of press. Three of our employees (Jessica Crumrine, Nathan Miller, and Alex Wespi) wrote guest blogs for the Wichita Business Journal during the trip, providing insights on their findings and applying them to Wichita.
- Jessica Crumrine's "Dispatches from Silicon Valley — Wichita needs to build the ecosystem to attract the tech," http://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/blog/techflash/2014/05/dispatches-from-silicon-valley-wichita-needs-to.html
- Nathan Miller's "Dispatches from Silicon Valley — A call to Wichita investors," http://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/blog/2014/05/dispatches-from-silicon-valley-a-call-to-wichita.html
- Alex Wespi's "Dispatches from Silicon Valley — Could Wichita replicate the culture," http://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/blog/techflash/2014/05/dispatches-from-silicon-valley-could-wichita.html
Alex Wespi's blog post was also featured in the May 30th printed edition of the Wichita Business Journal on page 26 as a column editorial.
The cover story of this Wichita Business Journal edition also featured insights from several BIG employees (Jessica Crumrine, Katie Deutsch, Taylor Freund, and Nathan Miller). The article entitled "'Not just real estate' — How proximity between industry and academia at Wichita State University could spark growth" can be read online at http://bizj.us/wjqtz.
The WBJ cover story featuring several BIG employees.
To read the full conversation Jessica, Katie, Taylor, and Nathan had with Emily Behlmann, the WBJ's Digital Editor, upon returning from Silicon Valley visit: http://bizj.us/wltmh.
In addition to the press BIG received during and after this trip, the Wichita Business Journal also released an article highlighting BIG's sponsorship for our Silicon Valley trip from the Wichita Chamber of Commerce Visioneering Technology Alliance before we left. This article can be found at http://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/blog/techflash/2014/05/wichita-chamber-sponsoring-silicon-valley-research.html.
We are so greatful to the Wichita Business Journal for giving BIG positive exposure throughout this trip, highlighting all that we are trying to accomplish to further and diversify Wichita's economy. Additionally, we would like to thank the Visioneering Technology Alliance arm of the Chamber of Commerce for sponsoring our trip to Silicon Valley.
To view photos taken by Kwame Twumasi-Ankrah throughout our trip, see BIG's most recent Facebook album entitled "BIG in the Valley" at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.636836013067505.1073741830.187523911332053&type=1.
