A sudsy week of beer-fueled excitement is set to cure what "ales" fun-seeking Clevelanders.

The sixth annual Cleveland Beer Week has hundreds of events scheduled at an equal number of venues from Oct. 10, through Oct. 19. The usual concerts, parties, special tappings and educational programs will be held, capped off by the massive Brewzilla celebration featuring 80 beer makers pouring your favorite barley sodas.

Brewers directly involved with the beery proceedings are arriving with their own efforts. Platform Beer Company has collaborated with the New Albion Brewing Company on a re-release of New Albion Ale. The flagship pale ale will be on tap Oct. 17 at the Platform Brewhouse on Lorain Avenue. Partnering with the first U.S. post-Prohibition microbrewery was an opportunity to get the original recipe back in the hands of its fans, notes Platform co-owner Justin Carson.

"It was very innovative in its day," Carson says.

On Oct. 14, Platform is hosting "Same Brew, Different Takes," where a batch of beer will be infused with unusual ingredients to create new tastes. The following evening is the brewery's "Choose Your Own Adventure" release, featuring a customer-voted beer created by in-house brewmaster Shaun Yasaki.

 "We're planning on having a different beer each year," says Platform's Paul Benner.  

Collaborations are a big part of CBW, and this year is no different. Joint efforts will match Great Lakes Brewing Co., Thirsty Dog Brewing Co. and other establishments with out-of-state brewers. Resulting mixtures will be  made available at various watering holes throughout the city.

Meanwhile, a dozen local breweries have concocted six new beers for the Oct. 8 Gambrinus Brewery Crawl, set to raise money for restoration of the King Gambrinus statue that previously stood at Leisy Brewing. Pouring locations for the event are Platform,  Butcher & The Brewer, Market Garden Brewery, and Nano Brew Cleveland.   
 

Talent attraction/retention nonprofit Engage! Cleveland has officially kicked off a series of Cleveland-friendly social activities and professional development opportunities through its first annual Cleveland Young Professionals Week.

The weeklong succession of cost-free events aimed at the youthful and talented began Monday and will continue through Oct. 11, says Engage! Cleveland executive director Ashley Basile Oeken. Each day will feature a variety of around-the-clock happenings on both the East and West Side, including fitness classes at local studios, speaker-centric "lunch-and-learn" programs, and nightly networking get-togethers. That's 25 events over six days, if you're counting.

"You hear about other cities and how they've engaged young professionals," says Basile Oeken. "We wanted a signature event to put our name on."

Programming is generally aimed at people age 21 to 40, although the nonprofit is inclusive of anyone who considers themselves a YP. Events are filling up, notes Basile Oeken, so if you're interested in a spinning class at Harness Cycle or listening to a talk by PlayhouseSquare president Art Falco, it's best to act fast.

Basile Oeken views Engage! Cleveland's first-ever CLE YP Week as a chance to show off everything the city has to offer, whether to a lifelong resident or someone who moved here a month ago. Attracting and retaining young talent means linking it to influential leaders and local organizations, she believes.

"It's acclimating people to how much is going on in Cleveland," says Basile Oeken. "There's an opportunity to get everyone living in this community to support it collectively."

While programming will end with a closing party at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, the nonprofit director expects the energy generated by a week's worth of events to resonate throughout the year.

"If you're involved, Cleveland can sell itself," Basile Oeken says. "People are more likely to stay when they're engaged."

The Incubator at MAGNET has announced six finalists for its first product-focused pitch contest.

The ProtoTech competition, co-sponsored by NASA Glenn Research Center,  concentrates on technology-driven wares and the companies aiming to bring those products to market. A MAGNET press release listed the finalists:

* Advanced BioSensors-Ohio, creator of a "Continuous Glucose Monitor" for diabetic patients.

* Axenic, maker of non-toxic liquid-based solutions that clean organic waste.

* EveryKey, a Case Western Reserve University-based company that makes a high-tech wristband that syncs with keys and passwords.

* FGC Plasma Solutions, creator of a fuel nozzle designed to save money and reduce emissions.

* Real Time Imaging Technologies, designer of a low-dose dental x-ray imaging system.

* RoboNail, maker of robotic tools that enable contractors to install roofing with more efficiency.

The final pitch teams will present their work before a panel of judges at an Oct. 21 event at the Ariel International Center in Cleveland. Would-be inventors are encouraged to create fundraising sites highlighting their efforts, with the money they raise going back into product creation.

The pitch contest was introduced in July with the intention of highlighting physical technology rather than IT or service-based ventures. Incubator executive director Dave Crain believes the competition did well to represent the diversity of product-centric innovation in Northeast Ohio.  
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“Interest from the community and event partners has been very strong," Crain says. "Everyone is excited for the event and the opportunity to support a showcase of our rich product startup landscape."

 
"Think big" was the theme of an Amplify Speaker Series luncheon on making the most of Northeast Ohio's steadily developing information technology presence.

The region must continue to expand its fiber optic infrastructure alongside ongoing efforts to transform Cleveland into a bustling tech hub with worldwide reach, said a foursome of panelists during the October 1 event sponsored by Contempo Communications.

The physical network itself is burgeoning, notes Lev Gonnick of OneCommunity, a nonprofit foundation helping to grow high-speed internet in Northeast Ohio. Since its founding in 2003, the organization has laid 111 miles of fiber in Cuyahoga County alone.

An advanced fiber optic/digital base transporting data at high speeds can be a boon for the area's already robust healthcare sector, says Kevin Goodman, managing director/partner of downtown Cleveland cloud-computing provider BlueBridge Networks. Crystal clear doctor-to-patient conferencing is just one example of how robust telecommunications can aid the industry.

If a healthy digital platform can help build industry and bring jobs, it will give Northeast Ohio an advantage in the hunt for young professionals over similarly sized markets, says Ashley Basile Oeken, executive director of Engage! Cleveland, a talent attraction/retention nonprofit.

"We're falling behind cities like Pittsburgh and Indianapolis in bringing in talent,"  Basile Oeken says. "Cleveland has to find ways to stand out."

Dan Young, founder of technology and design agency DXY, is looking beyond county, state and even national borders when it comes to connecting with the next wave of innovators. Young helped establish a DXY satellite office in Germany, an experience that showcased the need for Cleveland to attract immigrant brainpower.

"The city has to be bigger and bolder about the conversation it's having," he says.

Creating a regional tech epicenter here would make drawing dynamic folks of disparate backgrounds all the easier easier, says Joy Roller, panel facilitator and executive director of Global Cleveland.
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"We need to be open to the flow of ideas and new people," she says. 

Workers aged 40 and over might not fit the typical hip innovator profile, but they are often undervalued. Some may be former CEOs of large companies, arriving with particular skill sets that mesh with growth industries like biomedicine or advanced materials.

In June, Cuyahoga Community College received a $650,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation to help finance its One Door -- Many Options for Success initiative. The college-wide effort going into effect this year will expand Tri-C's service model, providing structured support services through student-centric college success teams and other programming.

Community college is a viable option for students seeking to save money while preparing to continue their studies at a four-year college. However, many undergraduates make costly and time-consuming mistakes before even getting to the transfer process. This potential nightmare can be avoided with careful planning done at the earliest stage of a student's academic career. Tri-C is not just streamlining this process to make transfer easier, it's promoting the importance of setting a direction the moment a student enters the institution.

Cuyahoga Community College's stated mission is to provide an affordable, high-quality learning experience for its diverse enrollment. Considering the amount of freshmen arriving on its doorstep each year, Tri-C has created an initiative to guide incoming students past the higher education threshold as painlessly as possible.
 
First Year Experience (FYE) is a multi-faceted, comprehensive introduction to Tri-C, says Dr. Michael Schoop, president of the school's Metropolitan Campus. The "campus support system" for new students folds the college's ordinary orientation procedures into a systematic, larger-scale effort meant to focus freshmen on long-term career and academic goals.
 
"Tri-C has long been interested in anything that can help more of our students become successful," says Schoop. "With so many of them new to the college experience, we needed a more structured approach."

Read the rest of the story here.
 

Northeast Ohio has a number of resources available for an expanding Latino populace searching for work and business opportunities. These services, say their providers, can keep immigrant brainpower in the area while acting as a talent magnet for the Latino and Spanish-speaking diaspora. 

Any teenager with a smartphone and some ingenuity can record a song and download it to SoundCloud or YouTube. But Cuyahoga Community College’s recording arts and technology program prepares students for all types of positions within the audio industry.

Graphic design is a form of visual storytelling, where a few well-crafted images can speak to the viewer in a language more powerful than words. Cuyahoga Community College's graphic design program helps students to harness that power for themselves, with the story they're telling going straight into their portfolios. 

Terri Pontremoli has a vision for the Tri-C JazzFest's first foray into summer. The event director imagines thousands of Clevelanders gathered in the newly chandeliered U.S. Bank Plaza, enjoying the early evening sunshine and a host of free outdoor music events. Close by, Playhouse Square's multiple indoor venues are packed with genre enthusiasts whose finger-snapping exuberance has helped make JazzFest the must-attend extravaganza that it has been for the last 34 years.
 
Whether this vision comes to life or not will be determined when the festival's 35th installment hits its first note later this week, marking an official shift from an annual 10-day event in April to a single summer weekend, June 26-28.
 
The new schedule is an experiment for the annual affair by Cuyahoga Community College, one made necessary by practical reasons and a desire to help transform downtown into a warm weather music destination.
 
"We think Cleveland is ready for it," says Pontremoli.
 
Read the rest of the JazzFest feature here.

As the West Side Market’s new manager, Amanda Dempsey is stepping in at a time when the treasured public market is receiving unprecedented attention -- both good and unwanted. But throughout it all, she says, the focus must remain on the bond between the century-old icon and the city that embraces it.

Changing careers can be a difficult journey, regardless of a fulfillment-seeking wanderer's age or economic standing. However, the older a person gets, the less time they have to start that long voyage toward a new vocation.
 
Fortunately, there are more expeditious alternatives for those retracing their steps on the job trail, says Susan Muha, executive vice president of Cuyahoga Community College’s Workforce and Economic Development Division. The division's focus is job retraining, meaning adult employment seekers don't need to go back to school for a bachelor's degree.
 
"One way or another, it's all about connecting people with the job market," says Muha, a decade-long veteran of Tri-C's workforce division.
 
Throughout its layers of jobs-centric programming, the school works with about 15,000 to 20,000 participants annually. Many of these students have already attended a university and have little desire to go back. Tri-C offers training and certification programs measured in weeks or months rather than years, allowing prospective job seekers to be launched back into rotation quickly.

Read the rest of the story here.
 

Beginning in August, Northeast Ohio firefighters and law enforcers will have a "one-stop shop" at Cuyahoga Community College. The sprawling facility, dubbed the Public Safety Training Center of Excellence, is expected to meet the education needs of both green recruits and grizzled first responders alike.
 

Cuyahoga Community College's $18.7 million Advanced Technology Training Center educates the workforce of tomorrow by finding, training and placing the right people into the right jobs, serving as a feeder system of work-ready candidates for in-demand positions in high-tech industries.
 

Watching Cleveland getting rocked for two hours in Captain America is great, but when the rush fades and reality creeps in, we're left with no guarantee Hollywood is ever going to return. A group of area stakeholders is advocating for changes that would attract more film projects, or even a prestige TV drama, to the North Coast.

Northeast Ohio's convention and visitors bureau wants to change the conversation about Cleveland. The multifaceted branding enterprise is designed to bridge a communications gap that ideally will be crossed by millions of business and leisure visitors over the next few years.

Tri-C has launched locally the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses, a $500 million initiative to help new business owners create jobs and economic opportunity. The program shepherds small companies through workshops, one-to-one advice, mentoring, capital and networking.

Corporate College, the business and training division of Tri-C, recently tested the notion that even successful businesses must continue to grow and learn with a field trip to the UK, sending a senior training specialist to coach up executives from Smithers Group, a scientific testing and consulting organization based in Akron.