Accelerate Michigan: Looking for the best ideas to grow Michigan’s economy!

If you are sitting on an idea for the “Next Big Thing,” you can now compete to win the financial support necessary to launch your idea or grow your company to the next stage.  The best and brightest business thinkers are invited to sharpen their pencils and enter their business plans in the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition.  With over $1 million in cash awards and in-kind contributions of services, staffing, and software, the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition is the nation’s largest monetary prize contest and offers serious support for winning business concepts. 

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Accelerate Michigan Launched: Business Leaders for Michigan Partners with The University Research Corridor

Business Leaders for Michigan (BLM) and the University Research Corridor (URC) has announced the formation of a new partnership called Accelerate Michigan.  The partnership will leverage the strengths of our research universities in collaboration with the business community to spur innovation and economic development for Michigan in a way that has not been done before. 

Based on benchmarking performed by McKinsey & Company, the partnership will become one of the largest of its kind between a state’s largest businesses and research universities.  The alliance will help support efforts to make Michigan a “top ten” state for economic growth by addressing three major pillars: Fostering Entrepreneurship, Growing Capacity to Scale Ideas and Catalyzing Clusters of Innovation. 

The partnership’s work plan includes sponsorship of a statewide innovation competition, and creation of university commercialization and venture capital funds. In addition, the partnership will focus on specific areas of innovation with great potential for business growth that align federal research spending plans, university research strengths, business needs and the state’s strengths. Visit www.AccelerateMichigan.com for more information.

New URC Study Shows Strength of Michigan Advanced Manufacturing Sector

More than 381,000 people at 11,000 Michigan firms are working in high-tech, highly productive advanced manufacturing jobs – nearly two-thirds of the state's manufacturing base, according to a new University Research Corridor study.  The report, prepared by East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group (AEG), shows Michigan's particular strengths in research-related advanced manufacturing: a third of the research and testing jobs in the Midwest are in Michigan and more than half of the state's advanced manufacturers are seeing productivity gains exceeding the U.S. average while employing 10% of the state's workforce.