Techweek brought hundreds of tech types to Union Station last month as Kansas City grows its tech community.
A startup recently began here, and a Phoenix company has founded a satellite office here.
Three area information technology veterans have teamed up to start their own company, and a Phoenix IT services firm is adding a Kansas City office — two more signs of the area’s growing tech presence.
The new company, EDZ Systems, says software it has developed will match clients’ needs with the right resources, “whether they’re looking through their own employee ranks or need to go outside of the company to search for expertise worldwide.”
President and CEO Elizabeth DeZeeuw said EDZ’s Intelligent Resources Management System will offer a unique combination of databases and algorithms.
DeZeeuw founded the company with Julie Schlatter, vice president for sales and marketing, and Daryl Hubbard, chief financial officer. DeZeeuw said they all worked for many years at another area powerhouse, DST Systems, and have three other employees so far.
DeZeeuw, who was born in Colombia, also noted EDZ’s international reach. Its first client is in Argentina, and it already has ties with companies there and in India, Ukraine and Chile, she said, as it identifies IT resources that could help other clients.
“We tell people to think of us as eHarmony for IT,” DeZeeuw said, referring to the big online dating site. She also said EDZ’s clients wouldn’t have to be limited to IT companies and needs because its system will be able to help with all sorts of personnel and business management tasks.
Kansas City also has a new satellite office for an established IT firm, Inspire Data Solutions of Phoenix, which was a sponsor of Kansas City’s first Techweek last month. As a Microsoft Cloud Partner, the company helps small and medium-size businesses use Microsoft products over the Internet, including its Office programs and SharePoint Online, which helps workers collaborate across platforms and devices.
The company started moving into its office during Techweek, and company founder Santos Garcia will be commuting and hiring a four-person staff to get the office up and running.
“Kansas City is growing extremely well, and we think it’s a great place to expand our operations,” Garcia said. “The tech scene is definitely one of the best I’ve experienced, and we hope to become an integral part of it.”
