Mardi Gras beads and creative head wear — including a Viking helmet — mingled with entrepreneurship-minded Kansas Citians on Friday night in a college-like mixer aimed at highlighting the local startup scene.

The area’s first “Startup Crawl” drew roughly 400 people to the six-stop event, a collaboration between Red Nova Labs and five other entities, said Carrie Royce, the chief planner for the event.

Red Nova, a Web marketing think tank in Westwood, Kan., partnered with KC Startup Village, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Think Big Partners, OfficePort and BetaBlox to showcase roughly 50 startups, said Royce, Red Nova’s chief marketing officer.

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Earlier this year I wrote one of my first piece's for the Huffington Post entitled "Flyover Country? Not this Kansas City." The column focused on many of the incredible things happening on Silicon Prairie. Since then Kansas City has continued to impress with its unbelievable momentum in the entrepreneur, startup and innovation space. Kansas City is on a roll. It's a city on move.

Now as many people might already know Kansas City has the best barbecue in the world. Not only is it the best, but recently one of KC's outstanding BBQ restaurants, Oklahoma Joe's, was named The Manliest Restaurant in America by Men's Health. Try the Z-Man and fries, you won't be disappointed. KC is the barbecue capital of the world, but now through The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce's Big 5 Initiative, KC is building to become "America's Most Entrepreneurial City." A lofty goal with serious competition on both coasts, but with Kansas City's rich history of entrepreneurship and innovation anything is possible.

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It may surprise you to learn that Silicon Valley isn’t the only startup hotbed in the U.S. In between Silicon Valley and Route 128 there are many pockets of growth and expansion in the startup world. We take a look at where startups are growing and where they are burning out.

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Farms, cows and Dorothy? Try entrepreneurship, high tech and the arts.

The Kansas City Metropolitan area is becoming the envy of individuals on the East and West coasts who have long since considered it merely flyover country. The City of Fountains has been praised as a great place to live, work and visit for many years, but recently it is becoming a hot bed for entrepreneurial investment, high culture and the innovations of the future.

Kansas City, Missouri, is home to the world renowned Kauffman Foundation. The foundation's mission is to help individuals attain economic independence by advancing educational achievement and entrepreneurial success. The Kauffman Foundation's focus on entrepreneurship, innovation, education, and research has helped fuel Kansas City's global presence as an attractive place for creativity and business. Nearly 300,000 individuals from throughout the world have been part of the Kauffman FastTrac program, which has helped entrepreneurs start and grow their business. In addition to the Kauffman Foundation, the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Graduate Entrepreneurship Program was recently named the 2012 National Model Graduate Entrepreneurship Program by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE). Entrepreneurship is booming and alive in Kansas City.

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The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerceand Think Big Partners today announced that they are teaming up with H&R Block to host a new innovation and entrepreneurship conference later this year.

The all-day conference, which is a combination of two events — the Chamber's Innovation Conferenceand Think Big Kansas City — that were held separately last year, will be hosted by H&R Block and take place on June 20 at the H&R Block corporate headquarters building in downtown Kansas City, Mo. The mission of the conference is to help build the city of entrepreneurs, to provide startup inspiration for area entrepreneurs and to help foster innovation and creativity in Kansas City.

"There has never been a better time to host an innovation conference in Kansas City," Kristi Wyatt (below, left), the senior vice president of public policy and programs for the Chamber, said in a release. "With the implementation of Google Fiber, the efforts from the Kauffman Foundation, the presence of the UMKC Bloch School, the Big 5 initiatives and now this conference, we are truly fostering America's most entrepreneurial city."

The announcement follows on the heels of a pair of other announcements by the two organizations that are spearheading the new event. In September, as one of its "Big 5" initiatives for improving Kansas City over the next five years, the Chamber announced its aimof making Kansas City "America's most entrepreneurial city." In January, Think Big, which is an early-stage startup accelerator and mentorship-based collaborative network, announced the launch ofThink Big Nation, the umbrella under which Think Big Partners' more robust raft of operations will function.   

"This innovation conference is just the first step toward making Kansas City a part of the Think Big Nation," Herb Sih (above, right), the managing partner and co-founder of Think Big, said in the release. "We believe that by collaborating with other entrepreneurial organizations, seizing local, regional and national opportunities and serving more Midwestern entrepreneurs, we can identify more great ideas, grow more profitable companies and create more jobs in Kansas City."

In order to foster community involvement, the Chamber and Think Big are encouraging people to submit name ideas for the innovation and entrepreneur conference. Names should be submitted via the KC2012 website by March 2. The official name will be selected by the event's organizers, and the winner of the naming contest will receive a free ticket for the life of the conference, plus other prizes.

The conference is also seeking leaders in the Kansas City business community to get involved through sponsorship or speaker opportunities. Those interested in participating can visit the event's website or call 816-842-5244.