Students in UMKC’s Entrepreneurship Scholars program now have a new opportunity to tap into the resources of Digital Sandbox KC.

Under a partnership between the two programs, E-Scholars students will be able to compete against each other for project funding worth up to $10,000. If they meet other milestones, they could apply to Digital Sandbox KC for another $15,000.Funding is from the Bloch School and matched by Digital Sandbox KC funds.

“This partnership really focuses on helping those entrepreneurs at the early, early stage of taking an idea and moving it to a proven concept,” said Jeff Hornsby, the director of the UMKC Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which houses the E-Scholars program.

“It’s vital to our community to continue to help move as many early stage entrepreneurs navigate down the path to commercialization so we continue to grow new businesses.”

The two program share similar missions. E-Scholars, founded in 2011, helps local entrepreneurs build and launch new ventures. The program has helped produce more than 160 such ventures.

Digital Sandbox KC, meanwhile, offers proof-of-concept and prototyping help to local startups, helping them reach the commercialization stage. To date, 46 startups have received project development funding from Digital Sandbox KC. Those companies have gone on to raise more than $17 million and create 180 jobs.

“As we continue to look for ways for Digital Sandbox to create even more new KC-based companies and jobs, the idea of partnering with UMKC’s E-Scholar program just made perfect sense,” said Jeff Shackelford, director of Digital Sandbox KC. “We’ve already seen from our partnerships with many of Kansas City’s most well-known companies that by bringing many resources together and focusing on growing new area businesses, great things can happen.”