Once upon a time, Sprint was a startup, too.
That’s one reason why the telecommunications giant—founded in 1899 as the Brown Telephone Company of Abilene, Kan.—created the Sprint Accelerator, a program designed to foster the next high-growth company.
Doug Dresslaer, general manager of the Sprint Accelerator, talked about the initiative at the Leawood Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Tuesday at the Ritz Charles hotel in Overland Park.
Dresslaer explained how the Sprint Accelerator, located in the Crossroads Arts District, includes a community work space, a co-working space and an open event space. Throughout the 20,000-square-foot building, corporate partners and business mentors collaborate with innovative startups to help them create new products and services.
The Sprint Accelerator’s mission includes its strong support of community and corporate social responsibility, Dresslaer said, while reinforcing a culture that is not required to be Sprint-centric, just as trailblazing as possible.
Dresslaer recalled a Startup Weekend event at the Sprint Accelerator, where Sprint employees formed teams to create startups that had nothing to do with what they did at work. One team came up with an app that tracked classic pinball machines in Kansas City bars. The point of the exercise was to “get out of the cubicles and be able to share ideas,” Dresslaer said. “It was really exciting for our employees.”
Dresslaer also discussed in detail the Sprint Accelerator powered by Techstars program. The annual program invites 10 mobile health startups from around the world to spend three months in Kansas City while developing their products with the help of hundreds of high-powered mentors. Dresslaer called it “mentor madness.”
“It’s a very intense program,” he said, that this year included two startups that decided to stay in Kansas City. They are FitBark, maker of a wearable activity monitor for dogs, and Symptom.ly, which offers an app to track the health of children with asthma.
Dresslaer concluded by encouraging audience members to spread the word that applications are now being accepted for the 2015 Sprint Accelerator powered by Techstars program.
“As long as it’s mobile and it has to do with health, we want to hear from you … ” Dresslaer said.
