Located in the heart of America's Heartland the Silicon Prairie Center is an innovation hub connecting the Silicon Prairie with Silicon Valley and innovation centers around the world. The Silicon Prairie Center is a unique entrepreneur live-work community offering residential and office space and in the future product development space.
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There are two facilities in two century-old buildings in a downtown the Main Building, which includes residences, offices, cafe, studio, and lab space and the Innovation Library which is the hub of the incubator.
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The Silicon Prairie Center was founded by Kirk Zeller, DBA a veteran of the Silicon Valley medical device start-up world and native of Central Nebraska.
Kirk Zeller, DBA
Founder
Kirk Zeller is passionate about bringing to market innovative medical devices and has twenty-five years of experience doing so in markets around the world. After studing at two Japanese universities Kirk started his career as a heart valves sales rep in Japan and spent the first years of his career working for Japanese medical device companies before being relocated back to the United States and then to the United Kingdom. Kirk’s functional expertise includes sales, marketing, channel management, market development, business development, and commercial development for companies including J&J, Micrus Endovascular, SI-BONE, PneumRx, Japan Lifeline, and Goodman (NIPRO). Kirk is deeply passionate about medical device start-ups and medical device innovation. Over the last two decades Kirk has facilitated the launch of a wide range of medical devices in international markets and is a frequent speaker on related topics.
Kirk has a Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) from the International School of Management (Paris) and MBA from Imperial College London with a specialization in BioPharma and Health Technology Entrepreneurship. His doctoral dissertation was entitled “European Market Entry Strategies for Venture Capital Financed Medical Device Companies: Where, When, How, and Why” and his MBA thesis was entitled "Financing and Beyond: The Role of Venture Capital in Silicon Valley Based Medical Device Companies." Kirk’s undergraduate studies were completed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nanzan University (Nagoya) (2 years), and Senshu University (Tokyo).
