NEOSA Tech Week brought 1,600 attendees to events around Cleveland last week, tripling its numbers since it first started three years ago. “It’s really inspiring to see the region recognizing the value and importance of the IT industry in Cleveland,” says NEOSA director Brad Nellis.

From the NASA International Space Apps Challenge, which had 34 local participants in a worldwide event of 9,000, to the much-anticipated Best of Tech Awards, to educational e... Read more >

Chris Armenio and Art Geigel like having everything they need right at their fingertips. Pairing smart phones with tinkering on a hobbyist level, the two came up with iOTOS, a way to control everything from the garage door opener to the coffee maker through smart phones and tablets.
 
Armenio and Geigel developed iOTOS through the LaunchHouse Accelerator Program last year. Based on a technology known as “the Internet of things,” the tech wirelessly connect... Read more >

Ryan O’Donnell has created a way to add a personal touch to online gifting. The founder and CEO of Sociagram has created an online cloud-based platform to create customized personal video messages. O’Donnell recognized that people enjoy sending e-cards and adding other personal touches when they send online gifts.

O’Donnell started Let’s Gift It in 2011, an online group gifting site, but quickly recognized the market wasn’t there. “What... Read more >

Researchers at CWRU have developed a material that can morph from stiff to soft, making its gradient properties potentially useful in medical implants. The research was conducted by professors Stuart Rowan, Justin Fox and Jeffrey Capadona of the macromolecular science and engineering, chemistry and biomedical engineering departments, and Paul Marasco of the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
 
The inspiration for the new materia... Read more >

In the penthouse of the historic Palace Theatre, Charles Stack is hoping to foster a few new tech companies -- 10 to be exact -- in Cleveland’s newest business accelerator, FlashStarts.

Stack started FlashStarts in October 2012 and will hold his inaugural startup class this summer. “Come in with a half-baked idea and we finish baking it, slap some cash for equity, and start it in three months,” he explains.
 
Teams of two or more can apply t... Read more >

Global Cleveland recently launched its Asian Initiative, a program to attract and retain Asian talent to the region. “Asians are now the fastest growing and most educated population in the U.S.,” says Meran Rogers, Global Cleveland’s director of community affairs, adding that Cleveland has seen a 49-percent increase in Asians between 2000 and 2010.

Those numbers prompted Global Cleveland to reach out to various groups in the Asian community to identify f... Read more >

When Jack Bialosky founded Bialosky and Partners back in 1951, he was just 27 years old and fresh out of serving in World War II. His vision and determination as an architect prompted him to follow his entrepreneurial urges and break away from his employer to pursue the clients he wanted to serve.

“He was working for architect Charles Kohlman at the time,” says Jack Bialosky, Jr. “As more work started coming in, Kohlman wasn’t interested in taking ... Read more >

As the owner of a small consulting firm, James Gasparatos knows all too well the struggles of running a small business, including promoting the company and finding the right talent among other things. The challenges gave Gasparatos the idea to start Gigfinity, an interactive website designed to help small and mid-size Cleveland businesses connect with customers, promote their companies and find local talent. The site also allows job seekers to peruse and apply for jobs with Gigfin... Read more >

Laurel School junior Anamika Veeramani took first place at TiE Ohio’s inaugural TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) Business Plan Competition on March 13 for her online science journal for high school students, En Kephalos Science Journal. Veeramani first beat out her fellow Laurel students in a competition before advancing to the regional competition. She won $1,000 and will compete in the TiE Global competition at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia in June.
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Intern in Ohio launched last week, connecting thousands of employers and students in internship opportunities across the state. The matching program, which was created by Detroit-based Digerati and sponsored by the University of Toledo, is free to both students and employers.
 
Intern in Ohio uses Digerati's matching algorithm -- called Classroom to Career -- to match participants based on their skills, interests and requirements. The program saves employers time ... Read more >

El Futuro de Cleveland, a collaboration between Global Cleveland, Esperanza, Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education (NOCHE), and Cleveland Leadership Center’s (i)Cleveland hopes to retain local Latino talent in Northeast Ohio by offering paid internships to college students.
 
“The mission is to support the rich diversity of the Greater Cleveland Latino community and ensure it grows and thrives,” says Global Cleveland’s Elizabeth Hijar. The... Read more >

When Tom Nolan was at South by Southwest (SXSW) last year, he was moved by the startup companies on the stage during the business accelerator. “It was inspiring to see the companies go and pitch their hearts out with something they’ve been working on for months and years,” Nolan says. “I remember sitting in the audience and I had the idea for Plotter and I thought, ‘I’m going to go home and work on it.'"
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Two years ago, Matt Benton and his partner Jeremy Amos had an idea for adding social media to the college search process. So they quit their jobs doing investment work at KeyBank to develop College with Friends, a free mobile app that allows users to build a list of schools and see where their friends are going.

“It’s a way of saying, 'Hey, I want to go to Ohio State; who else wants to go there?'" says Benton. "The ma... Read more >

Motorcycle enthusiasts who want to take to the open road for an afternoon will be able to rent a BMW motorcycle through Eagle Rider Cleveland BMW, starting April 1. The company, a spinoff of Sill’s Motor Sales on Brookpark Road, will rent out six BMW motorcycles in four models, including the new BMW scooter and BMW’s top-of-the-line model with all the bells and whistles.
 
Customers can rent the bikes for a day or longer, or even do a one-way rental and dr... Read more >

In 1960, the late Keeva J. Kekst founded ka architecture in his attic, where he designed apartment buildings. Today, under the third generation of ownership, ka architecture is behind the designs of some of Northeast Ohio’s newest and most prominent structures, including the Horseshoe Casino in Public Square and the new Eaton Corporation world headquarters in Beachwood.
 
“We’re pretty proud that we’re still around and we’ve weathered thi... Read more >