Digital Sandbox Company SportsPhotos.com Selected for TechStars Patriot Boot Camp

KANSAS CITY (July 8, 2013) — Brandon Schatz of SportsPhotos.com has been selected for the TechStars Patriot Boot Camp, scheduled for July 17-19 in Washington, D.C.

“I really appreciate the Digital Sandbox folks letting me know about this opportunity,” Schatz said. “They also connected me with Dan Strattman (Airport Life) who went through the boot camp last year so I could figure out the best way to use my time there.”

TechStars Patriot Boot Camp is an intense three-day program under the RisingStars umbrella. In July of 2013, the program will educate and mentor a selected group of Veterans and Service Member founders to build technology companies. Participation in the Patriot Boot Camp may be the catalyst for Veterans and Service Members to kickstart a company, find cofounders and advance as entrepreneurs. 

The RisingStars program was created to spur interest from some demographic groups that are underrepresented among technology startup founders, with the goal of extending technology company startup opportunities to these target groups. 

Patriot Boot Camp will include presentations by TechStars mentors, alumni, and technology industry leaders, one-on-one mentoring from the TechStars’ team, alumni, and entrepreneurial leaders, interaction with other motivated entrepreneurs, education on the process to build a technology startup, interaction with successful D.C. startups, access to startup community resources, and peer and mentor feedback. The mentors and speakers will be drawn from the rich pool of our mentors, alumni, and friends of the TechStars community. These are highly motivated individuals who are emotionally invested in supporting Veteran entrepreneurs.

Over the course of the three-day program, the presentations by TechStars mentors and one-on-one mentoring will guide the participant to solidify a business idea, focus their fundraising pitch, improve their accelerator application, refine their product concept, or demonstrate progress as it relates to their entrepreneurial path. Each participant or group of participants will have the opportunity to share their progress with the Patriot Boot Camp cohort.

Sportsphotos.com provides a platform and marketplace for sports photographers to store and sell their sports photos.

Digital Sandbox KC is an unprecedented partnership among private companies, universities, entrepreneurial support organizations and government agencies across the Kansas City region designed to spur the creation of high growth companies.  Digital Sandbox KC provides proof of concept resources including market validation, prototyping and beta testing support for development of digital technologies within new and existing businesses. Initial funding came through a $1 million federal i6 Challenge Grant for a proof of concept center. 

The Sandbox was developed by KCSourceLink through the collaboration of partners such as: corporate (Sprint, Hallmark, UMB, VML, Cerner, RareWire, SparkLabKC), academic (UMKC, University of Kansas), nonprofit (Enterprise Center of Johnson County; Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute; Union Station, Inc.; KCNext), public (Missouri Technology Corporation, Mayors’ Bistate Innovation Team, Economic Development Corp. of KC) and philanthropic (Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation).

Visit us at http://www.digitalsandboxkc.com/