In an effort to inspire area students to think about clean energy, this year's Clean Energy Challenge will be open to local college students. NorTech is heading up Ohio’s participation in the business plan contest, sponsored by Clean Energy Trust in Chicago.
 
“The point of the challenge is to institute more technology transfer out of the universities,” explains Dave Karpinski, NorTech vice president. “It’s a business plan competition... Read more >

Kicking off what is being billed as "A Day of Social Innovation," bigBANG! will shine the spotlight on a number of innovative local nonprofits that are benefitting our community. The day-long forum, hosted by Cleveland Social Venture Partners (CSVP) and taking place at the CSU Student Center, is the event's inaugural year.

Cleveland State University is part of an economic impact study of shale in Ohio and its potential to give a big boost to the state’s economy. Ohio State and Marietta College are also participating in the study, commissioned by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the Ohio Shale Coalition.
 
The study focuses on the economic impact of drilling for gas and oil in the Utica Point Pleasant and Marcellus shale formations that run along the eastern half of the st... Read more >

Ryan Clark and Nathan Lambert know how to sell advertising. They also figured out a way to help libraries offset printing costs. The co-founders of Knowta, a Shaker LaunchHouse portfolio company, have created a unique print ad system that runs ads at the bottom of a page that users print out at the library.
 
The concept is brilliantly simple: Users elect to receive the advertising in exchange for free or discounted printing. Instead of receiving documents on typical ... Read more >

CEOs for Cities, a global nonprofit network of urban leaders focused on making American cities more successful, has opened an office in Cleveland. Lee Fisher, former Ohio Lt. Governor, Ohio Attorney General, and director of the Ohio Department of Development, was named president and CEO of the organization earlier this year and insisted his offices be in Cleveland.
 
“I told them I was a lifelong Ohioan and did not want to move out of Ohio,” Fisher says. T... Read more >

“Downtown is where the action is,” says Alex Cortes, an attorney who lives in the Warehouse District. Cortes is one of the 10,000 people who call downtown home. But to reach the 20,000-resident figure that boosters say Cleveland needs to truly become a vibrant neighborhood in the city, more retail, green space, and housing options will have to come online.

A team of researchers has developed an artificial lung that uses regular air, not pure oxygen, and is portable, marking a huge step forward for people with acute and chronic lung disease. The research is a result of collaboration between CWRU and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center. "The most significant finding is that we have demonstrated a small scale, prototype artificial lung," says Joseph A. Potkay, research assistant professor in CWRU's department of electrical e... Read more >

The bunker-like concrete building at the corner of Euclid and E. 22nd was built in 1971 as a Holiday Inn. It became Cleveland State University's first dormitory in 1986. Over the years, Viking Hall has come to be seen as something of a relic -- and a barrier to the new, outward-focused identity of the university.

Now, after being closed since 2010 when CSU opened the nearby Euclid Commons residential development, the Campus District eyesore is set to be demolished. CSU h... Read more >

Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge hosted a For the People job fair and town hall meeting at Cleveland State University on Monday, August 8 to help combat Ohio's rising unemployment rate. The job fair featured nearly 100 employers were on hand, offering more than 1,200 jobs in healthcare, banking, sales, retail, hospitality, education, manufacturing, nonprofits, and government affairs. Thousands of eager job seekers showed up at the event. "By hosting a job fair, I want to do my part... Read more >

The Cleveland Design Competition, an open ideas challenge that aims to spur fresh architectural thinking in Cleveland, will soon showcase ideas for a new K-12 public school in downtown Cleveland.

The event organizers, architectural designers Michael Christoff and Bradley Fink, plan to showcase the designs and announce the competition winners at a public ceremony that will be held at the Cleveland State University Student Center beginning at 6 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 19th. <... Read more >

The Civic Commons, a nonprofit organization that helps foster civic engagement through creating community conversations, has relocated its offices to a street-level storefront at Trinity Commons.

"We wanted to be accessible to the community, and a place where people can just drop by," says Dan Moulthrop, Civic Commons Curator of Conversation, of the move. "We don't want to be hidden in an office building somewhere; we want people to feel like the Civic Commons is a place... Read more >

Local entrepreneur and Cleveland State University alumnus, Monte Ahuja, has donated $10 million to his alma mater to fund scholarships and an endowed professorship in business. The announcement was made during a special celebration on June 24 in the university's student center, marking the largest gift in the university's 47-year history.

The founder of Transtar Industries, a $600 million a year global leader in transmission replacement parts, Ahuja got his start at CSU ... Read more >

Cleveland State University's Factory Theatre is so often booked that students have to schedule rehearsals late at night. While department chair Michael Mauldin bemoans his program's outdated facilities, he realizes that it's a good problem to have.

Before Mauldin was hired in 2006 to breathe new life into the moribund Dramatic Arts Program, the school had only 21 majors. Campus officials had even considered canceling it. Today,CSU's theatre program boasts 85 majors -- an... Read more >

Recent CWRU mechanical engineering graduates Austin Schmidt and Solomon Alkhasov won the 2011 Idea Competition, sponsored by LaunchHouse and CSU's Accelerated MBA program at Nance College of Business. They created a company called Affinity Algorithms, which develops proprietary computer arbitrage software to facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers in various online marketplaces. The software provides greater liquidity and price transparency in the marketplaces. "We are... Read more >

It's a well known fact that institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals are growth engines in Cleveland's economy these days. A lesser-known fact is that these institutions and others have emerged as leaders in greening Northeast Ohio's economy.

In recent months, Case, University Hospitals, Cleveland Clinic, Tri-C, Kent State, Oberlin College, Cleveland State University and the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value at... Read more >

As a law student at CSU's Cleveland Marshall College of Law, Art Geigel noticed a flaw in the way he and his fellow students took notes in class. Almost everybody took notes using their laptops and Microsoft Word, compiling seemingly endless documents with no way of organizing the information.

"I kept thinking to myself, 'There's a better way to do this than to keep taking notes in one constantly growing Word document,'" says Geigel.

That "better way," says G... Read more >

Since its launch in 2000, the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission has brought to Cleveland over 85 sporting events with an estimated economic impact of more than $300 million. Those events include the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Senior PGA Championship, NCAA Women's Final Four, and the Gravity Games. This summer, the Commission's flagship event, the Continental Cup, will bring in 4,000 young athletes from 25 countries for four days of competition.

Cleveland State University's Nance College of Business Administration and Shaker LaunchHouse have teamed up to encourage the regions entrepreneurs to follow their dreams.

The agreement was adopted at a special meeting of the Shaker City Council on March 14, after recommendation by the Shaker Heights Economic Development Department.

One of the first endeavors the two have launched is the 2011 Idea Competition. The contest is open to students at any Ohio college or... Read more >