The 04.11.05 Ohio Venture Association (OVA) luncheon at the Cleveland Union Club featured City of Cleveland Senior Executive for Technology Development, aka “tech czar�, Michael DeAloia. Michael is responsible for expanding information technology focused business development in Cleveland, and his results to date are impressive, as highlighted below. Preceding Michael’s talk was a “5-Minute Forum� by Anthony Margida, Ph.D., the Battelle Company Formation Advisor to GLITeC, making this a very important, tech-centric innovation immersion event.

An insightful opinion editorial in the 04.15.05 New York Times declares "Bush Disarms, Unilaterally", claiming over the past few years the US has abandoned the new economy war. The author states what he "can't figure out about the Bush team is why an administration that is so focused on projecting U.S. military strength abroad has taken such little interest in America's economic competitiveness at home - the underlying engine of our strength" - ultimately the question posed is why Americans are allowing ourselves to fall behind the rest of the world in deploying information technology research and access to our masses. The same reasoning can be applied to our homeland economy for Northeast Ohio - why do we allow 100,000s of area residents to stagnate in the old economy, divided apart from the digital economy?

Tuesday@REI: April 12: "The Gehry designed Peter B. Lewis portal to Industrial Innovation in NEO"

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CLEVELAND

Panel looks for jobs ideas

The Council for Excellence in Government will hold a town hall meeting on jobs at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Cleveland State University's Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs. The nonprofit, nonpartisan group based in Washington, D.C., will ask residents for suggestions on job creation and the roles that government and the private sector should have in economic development. The session is also sponsored by the Global Markets Institute at Goldman Sachs. Panelists include Mayor Jane Campbell, Ohio Lt. Gov. Bruce Johnson and the head of the Cleveland AFL-CIO Federation of Labor John Ryan. The meeting is free, but seating is limited. Call 202-728-0418

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The 03.14.05
Ohio Venture
Association entrepreneurship networking lunch at the Union
Club assembled a remarkable mix of entrepreneurs, venture funders and
entrepreneurship champions to build relationships and gain perspectives on the
state of opportunity and momentum of collaboration increasingly defining the
Northeast Ohio business community. That theme was well expressed by the
presence and focus of keynote presenter Mike Stubler, Managing Director of seed
and early stage venture capital firm Draper Triangle Ventures,
which just established an office in downtown Cleveland at 737 Bolivar Road -
also home of Jump Start. The topic of Mike's talk was “Why NEO is attractive to
Early Stage Investors�. Everyone in the club was engaged.

The inventor of Moore's law and a co-founder of Intel spoke recently of the loss of competitive advantage in Silicon Valley that offers either a warning or opportunity for NEO, highlighted with "Other areas have picked up on the technology - it's spread around to a lot of other places", "We have very formidable competition in the world. I think the
impact of China is just beginning to be felt," and "Chief among the challenges ahead for Silicon Valley is the
relative weakness of the U.S. public education system, which Moore
characterized as a problem for the entire country."

Key is sponsor and speaks of importance of diversity and
praises Xerox for their vision on this. Introduction of Anne Mulcahy speaks of her lifetime success
within Xerox and then rising to the top of what was a very troubled company.

REALNEO is a free open source social network established to
support dialogue and inclusion among all people interested in Northeast Ohio, at all levels. Visitors are
welcome to create an account and add content. Volunteers developing these social networking capabilities host this
oriantation on how to use these virtual tools for collaboration -
please join us all at the Peter B. Lewis building as we focus on
collaboration

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Dan Cuffaro, CIA IDSA Industrial Design Chair - for this last presentation in the "Young Artists Series", Dan speaks on "Innovations in Art and Design". Dan
explains he graduated from CIA in 1991 and, after working here until1994
(including for Greenlee-Hess), he spent 10 years in Boston, where he worked
up the Industrial Design industry to design director - his job then
included hiring young designers. In 2003 he was hired back to Cleveland as CIA
ID Chair, and he is redesigning the program to prepare students to thrive in
the design world he knows from the inside and out, in NEO and beyond.

The RAMTEC session had a remarkable attendance of leaders in education, workforce
and economic development and all aspects of manufacturing, drawn from many
counties throughout NEO - full house. REI Executive Director Ed Morrison
introduces the context of this session from his historical perspective
working with GE and in manufacturing, and observing manufacturing in NEO decline in many
ways - challenges are many - some manufacturers don't employ optimal practices
- lean manufacturing - basic common sense in regards to management. Some
manufacturers don't invest in product development - automation solutions - are
operating in isolation from each other - this decreases competitive strength opportunities.

American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and Michael Wyatt, Director of Training and Tracy
Rohrbaugh, Associate Training Coordinator for Matco Tools.  Topics include: Capturing the stake holders; Understanding your companies planning and budget cycle; Developing a 1 year and 3-5 year implementation plan; The role of continuous improvement in training. $25.00 members $35 nonmembers. Registration 440-835-3579 or email at astd [at] apk [dot] net

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Herb Crowther assembled an excellent and diverse panel of experts with a range of backgrounds, affiliations and interests related to the future of "energy" and implications on Earth and here in NEO - "scientists, entrepreneurs, energy specialists, economic development and community development professionals". The session flowed as follows:

Forum to unveil $28M plan to push automation

From Crain's - By DAVID BENNETT - Northeast Ohio's manufacturing sector has been hit hard by the one-two punch of the economic downturn and ever-growing foreign competition, but it's looking to launch a $28 million counteroffensive.

A group of NEO civic entrepreneurs are launching a new economic development initiative called RAMTEC - Regional Automated Manufacturing Technology and Education Center - initial supporting documentations is posting in this book, and the initiative is under support at http://ramtec-org.bryght.net

The State of NanoBusiness in the U.S. Today

For more information, visit

http://nanobusiness.org/

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Anne Mulcahy, chairman and CEO, Xerox Corp., began her career selling
copiers in Boston, and over the last three years, has led the company
through a massive transformation--reinventing Xerox into an innovative

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Learn how other regions have been successful in creating ready-to-go,
pre-permitted properties for development. Cleveland Neighborhood
Development Coalition, Shorebank and Westside Industrial Retention and

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If you are interested in developing the brainpower of our next generation of northeast Ohio residents and workers, please come read about the Northeast Ohio Breastfeeding Education and Advocacy Network!

I happened to catch the NOVA program "A Daring Flight" onÂ
Louis Blériot developing the first airplane to cross the English Channel, which in fact revolutionized the airplane industry at its beginning. Lessons Louis learned from Dayton's Wilbur Wright made this possible, and over the years following his Wright "schooling" Louis gained nearly every flight record in existence, with a plane that exceeded the Wright Brothers' accomplishments, becoming the most popular airplane in the world at that time. Understanding that transformation in time, place and industry offers many lessons for NEO now, in our transition.

This morning’s PD cited a Michigan research paper that concluded that economic cars, hybrids and the like, will generate a stronger economic return for European manufacturers, who have adapted to meet the more aggressive, European environmental standards and are now poised to reap the economic benefit of this growing market in the US. As a result, the study says, the US government should assist, despite the current $400+ billion budget deficit, in the retrofit/reengineering of the US plants to be able to compete. Of course, the industry could have also asked for assistance in meeting the environmental demands decades ago to seize the leadership mantel now held by European manufacturers, but for decades, US auto industry opposed stronger environmental standards, rather than adapt. Another significant, unmentioned lesson also warrants noting: Sound environmental policy, environmental leadership, can generate economic leadership in a very short time.

Our Mission 

Numerous NEO researchers and entrepreneurs are interested in developing a bioenergy industry here, and signirficant progress is being made - follow and report on developments here!