Last Saturday, July 23, Shaker LaunchHouse and Ohio Homecoming hosted the largest gathering of Ohio entrepreneurs and innovators of its kind at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the Great Lakes Science Center. The 6ixth City Tech Fest is designed to promote and celebrate the region's hottest entrepreneurs.

"We had 200 people and 26 of the fastest growing start-up companies," says Todd Goldstein, LaunchHouse partner in charge of finance and operations. "It was ... Read more >

MedWorks' first-ever vision-only clinic at Quicken Loans Arena last Wednesday proved to be quite successful. So much so that it also illustrated the need for more free or affordable vision care in the area. "We served over 900 people with exams or glasses," says MedWorks office manager Alyson Andrassy. "We anticipated up to 800 people. We had to turn away 500 people." Optometrists, opticians and ophthalmologists from all over Ohio volunteered their time, while the equipment for ... Read more >

In American culture, automobiles have long symbolized personal freedom. But present-day bike advocates say the exact opposite is true: Rather than create a sense of giddy liberty, cars foster feelings of isolation and enclosure. For that reason and more -- environmental concerns, high gas prices, the desire for a healthier lifestyle -- more people are opting to go "car-light" and "car-free."

As a corporate attorney, Candace Klein has worked with a lot of women who own businesses. She saw many of her clients struggling to stay afloat -- maxing out personal credit cards and mixing personal and business accounts to make ends meet. "My heart went out to them," she recalls. She began researching alternative financing options and discovered a hard truth: Women have a harder time getting financing for companies than men. So Klein decided to do something about it. In 2010, ... Read more >

With months-long waiting lists for many downtown apartments, it's clear that Cleveland is attracting plenty of new residents. But some aren't "new" at all. Boomerangs, native Clevelanders who've left and returned, claim a host of reasons for their homecoming. What they often find upon arrival is a city far different from the one they left behind.

For more than a year, advocates of multi-modal transportation have lobbied the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) to add bike and pedestrian lanes to the new Innerbelt bridge. They lost that fight, yet ODOT agreed to fund a $6 million renovation of the Lorain-Carnegie bridge.

That project, scheduled to be completed next fall, will add a broad, multi-use path on the north side and narrow intersections so they can be crossed more easily. It will also narrow driving l... Read more >

Some 300 young professionals and interns from 26 local businesses and organizations volunteered their time at this year's Business Volunteers Unlimited's (BVU) Summer of Service event on July 20. The number is a large increase from last year, when 199 volunteered. The volunteers planted urban gardens, organized medical donations for humanitarian aid shipments, painted shelters, interacted with seniors and more at 17 local nonprofit organizations.

BVU's mission is to link ... Read more >

Benjamin Parris sees an innovative, cost effective way to get around town. He's promoting and selling electric bicycles through his company, F&E Electric Bikes. The bikes, which hit up to 18.6 miles per hour, are a step away from mopeds, but are classified as bicycles rather than motorized vehicles.

Parris got the idea to produce the bikes after spending some time in China, where the bikes are commonplace.

"They've been very popular in the past five to 10 yea... Read more >

As is the case everywhere else on the planet, Cleveland is graced with more than its fair share of bloggers. From politics and sports to dining and social life, nothing here escapes the scrutiny of at least a handful of online scribes. When the traditional media fails to provide that unique perspective on, say, a teenager's long-held crush on Bernie Kosar, to whom will we turn? These bloggers, for a start.

You think you have a lot of balls in the air. As owner of Cleveland Plays, this city's premier sport and social club, John Teel manages a dizzying assortment of moving parts. The organization maintains an active database of roughly 20,000 members who play a dozen different co-ed sports in 40 separate leagues at eight different locations on any given day or night of the year. In addition to providing some much-needed fun and exercise, Cleveland Plays may be the best unofficial dati... Read more >

Mike Perry has a rather strange hobby. In his spare time, the president of Szarka Financial Management uses his skills as a hiring manager to help people spruce up their resumes and find new jobs. "It all started when one of the financial managers literally walked a client into my office and said, "so-and-so got laid off from the Cleveland Clinic. Can you take a look at her resume?'" explains Perry. "So I sat down with her. Soon, I had a parade of clients, family members, and fr... Read more >

Sustainable Cleveland 2019 (SC 2019), an effort by the City of Cleveland and local environmental groups to promote sustainability as a means of growing the economy in Northeast Ohio, will soon have a physical home in Tower City Center.

Andrew Watterson, Cleveland's Chief of Sustainability, says the purpose of the new Sustainable Cleveland Center is to promote efforts to green Northeast Ohio, provide central meeting space for environmental groups, and offer affordable s... Read more >