Kansas City doesn’t always get credit for what it’s built in tech. Kara Lowe is determined to change that.

As President and CEO of KC Tech Council, Lowe leads an organization that functions, in her words, as the shared voice of Kansas City’s tech industry. With more than 200 member companies spanning the metro area, and operations that reach into both the Missouri and Kansas state houses, KC Tech Council spends its days connecting people, advocating for the industry, and making sure the rest of the country knows what’s being built here.

This is their 10th year as an independent organization. Lowe has been with them for almost all of it.

More Than Just Kansas City

KC Tech Council is regional by design. The Kansas City metro straddles a state line, and so does their work. “We do policy advocacy in Missouri and Kansas,” Lowe explained. “We’re in each State House fairly frequently and are really there to serve as the voice of the tech industry on behalf of both of those states.”

That means regular trips to the Capitol, and a very specific approach to what they do when they get there.

“I see our role less about trying to find an end in mind and more about serving as a resource partner for those elected officials so that they can better understand the highly technical nature of a lot of our industry sub-sectors,” Lowe said.

One of the most effective tools they’ve found is getting lawmakers out of the statehouse and into a data center. “I think some of my most enjoyable interactions have been when we’ve brought electeds outside of the State House and into a data center or to a tech company and just allowed them to sort of see what goes on. You don’t necessarily change minds, but you can help create a more accurate portrayal. At the end of the day we all really want the same things, which is a growing and thriving Kansas economy.”

In Our DNA: The Logistics Hub Argument

Kansas has always been a place where things move through. Cattle on the Chisholm Trail. Grain along the railways. Now data.

Lowe sees a direct through-line. We sit at the middle of the country. The way that we store data and share it and communicate, servers to end users, it is the backbone of commerce and really the backbone of infrastructure in a digital economy.

And the connection to the old infrastructure isn’t just metaphorical. Most fiber lines are built beneath or alongside our railway lines. So those two things really do travel together.

She sees it as something embedded in the region’s identity. “I think it’s a little bit in our DNA as a region to be a hub for the movement of commerce, whether that commerce looks like a cow or is several megabytes of data. It’s just the changing nature of our economy, but we’re pretty good at logistics here.”

Why Tech Talent Stays in Kansas

“The numbers tell part of the story. We have more tech workers per capita than many cities that are larger than us, like Chicago, Houston, Charlotte,” Lowe noted. “These are really big cities, but we have more tech workers per capita than these towns do.”

The explanation isn’t just economic. Lowe hears it from executives who’ve relocated, and the theme is consistent.

“They like the fact that we have this Midwestern ethos of hardworking, dedicated, responsible, and also fairly loyal workforce, motivated by wanting to build a career and make a difference and be a contributor. There’s a pride of being from here that is evident in how our workforce shows up, how our talent continues to better themselves and take pride in what they do.

For companies looking to plant a flag, the pitch is practical. Kansas City is not overly parochial. It’s accessible enough that you can get your hands around it and build here, and not be 10 rungs away from a valuable connection. It’s pretty easy to get connected with the engines and circles of power that you may want for different elements of your growth trajectory.”

LEGiT: Opening the Door for the Next Generation

One of KC Tech Council’s most personal programs is LEGIT, Leadership Empowerment for Girls in Technology, now in its third cohort.

The insight behind it was simple. Women are underrepresented in tech, and a classroom coding curriculum was not going to solve that alone. What young women needed was inspiration.

“What we are conveying is what your dreams could look like in the future and less about here are the tactical things that will help you get there,” Lowe said. “Young women are often more inspired by that kind of programming than they would be by a course where they’re learning how to code.”

LEGIT brings together high school juniors and seniors, intentionally drawing only a couple of students from any single school, and connects them with women working in tech. Not just software engineers. The program includes intellectual property lawyers, cybersecurity insurance brokers, and others whose careers intersect with tech.

“We’ve had the pleasure of having companies like Garmin, Burns and McDonnell, CBOE, Meta, and a host of others come in and support and host these days at their offices,” she said. “These are young women from high schools across the region coming into tech companies and having real, intentional conversations.”

The goal is to create a visible path forward.

Four People. Thirty Events. No Shortage of Ambition.

KC Tech Council runs more than 30 events a year. They conduct policy advocacy in two states, host a K-12 program, publish data on the tech economy, and connect hundreds of member companies.

They do it with a team of four.

“I feel like I assembled the Avengers,” Lowe said. “They all came from their own unique backgrounds that are extremely relevant and additive to the mission at hand. Between the four of us we have industry experience, higher ed experience at both the community college and university level, deep civic experience, executive recruiter experience. Everything that we do, it’s been so gratifying to have folks that draw upon their career paths and what they’ve done to be able to contribute.”

The Outlook

Lowe is direct about the future.

“I’m extremely optimistic about the future,” she said. “Regions like Kansas City are primed to be in that next wave of investment and opportunity because we already have a strong backbone of tech workforce here.”

“From watching three cohorts of LEGIT students,” she adds, “our future looks very bright. We’ve got a lot of really interested young people who are more aware now of tech careers than any generation prior to them, and more aware of how important it is to think in a more innovative way about how you build your own career path.”

For Lowe, the work is focused on conditions rather than recognition. Building connections, strengthening the pipeline, and ensuring the industry can grow on its own terms.

KC Tech Council is a membership-based organization serving Kansas City’s tech industry across Missouri and Kansas. Learn more at kctechcouncil.com.

FlagshipKansas.Tech is a nonprofit organization going all in on Kansas tech. We work to raise awareness, grow talent, support workforce development, and connect the companies, leaders, educators, and communities shaping the future of technology in the Sunflower State. Learn more at flagshipkansas.tech.