This week’s 1 Million Cups, rather than taking place at the Kauffman Foundation, was held at the Henry W. Bloch Executive Hall for Entrepreneurship and Innovation on the campus of the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Another change: Instead of the typical two entrepreneurial pitches, there was only one given by clean-water startup World Help Solutions. The second spot was taken by 1 Million Cups co-founder Nate Olson, who delivered a celebratory recap of the organization’s past year of promoting early-stage entrepreneurs in Kansas City and across the country.

World Help Solutions co-founder and CEO Landon Young, a 2013 Kauffman Foundation Global Scholar, passionately spoke about his company’s online education platforms designed to help poor communities around the world solve life-threatening issues with clean water, medical care and agriculture.

“The goal is to help as many people as possible … go from dying to surviving,” Young said, before he visibly choked up while talking about a little girl he met at a well in Uganda, where she was holding a water container that had “oil” printed on it.

After teaching people how to get clean water with water purifiers, water filters and other tools, “we want to be able to move out of the picture,” Young said. “We want this to be sustainable long term.”

Next up was Olson of 1 Million Cups, who commemorated the group’s successful year.

“Who would have thought that Kansas City had more than 200 startups, and we’re still going?” Olson said.

The 1 Million Cups story began in Kansas City, Olson said, but it’s grown to include 22 other cities where eager startups vie for the opportunity to make their business pitches to rapt audiences of potential collaborators and investors.

“We’ve been giving away ice cream to places that don’t have ice cream,” Olson said of the group’s national reception, adding that about 70 other cities have asked to become part of the 1 Million Cups network.