Education is on the forefront of Cleveland's transformation plans. The city is aiming to reform its troubled school system as well as increase the number of youth attending and graduating from college.

Cleveland Public Library (CPL) had Cleveland's goals in mind when planning its African American History Month programming for this year. Throughout February, the library will offer a variety of education- and educator-focused programming, music and events at its mai... Read more >

Back in 2011, Fresh Water ran a feature about Ohio's newly instituted Film Production Tax Credit, which helped attract big-budget productions like "The Avengers" and "Alex Cross," plus smaller films like "Take Shelter" and "Fun Size." We decided to revisit the topic to see how it's working out for Cleveland, and Ohio.

In 2012, Northeast Ohio was a popular place for venture capitalists and angel investors to back startup companies. Investments nationally decreased by 10 percent last year, and decreased in the rest of Ohio by 33 percent, according to a study in The MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
 
But in Northeast Ohio, according to the Northeast Ohio Venture Capital Advisory Task Force, 105 tech-based companies in Greater Cle... Read more >

Arts and culture can define a community, creating a critical mass that translates into jobs, business opportunities and, ideally, sustained economic prosperity. These were the words of Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium Initiative (NEOSCC) director Hunter Morrison during a January 25 roundtable hosted by the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC).

These also are words that CPAC president and CEO Tom Schorgl likes to hear. The focus of the roundta... Read more >

Open Doors Academy, which started in 2002 as an after-school program for at-risk youth at St. Paul's Church in Cleveland Heights, now works with over 330 adolescents at eight school sites each year. Nearly 100 percent of Open Doors' participants attend college or a post-secondary program.

To accommodate its growth, Open Doors recently moved into a newly renovated, 5,700-square-foot office at 3311 Perkins Avenue. Executive Director Annemarie Grassi says that the or... Read more >

The health of Lake Erie has come a long way in the past 40 years, and it is now considered by many to be a case study of a recovering ecosystem. Yet not very many people know that, in part as a result of cleaning up our water pollution as well as our close proximity to a Great Lake, Northeast Ohio companies have developed rich expertise in water technology.

To leverage this cluster, influence policy, and conduct research and education, a group of organizations have launch... Read more >

Each year in Cuyahoga County, 20 fortunate artists are awarded $20,000 Creative Workforce Fellowship grants to pursue their art, which often takes a back seat to more pressing needs. The fellowships also help to brand the region to outsiders as an artist-friendly place to live.

Throughout its colorful history, the Agora complex in MidTown has been home to a vaudeville theatre, burlesque house, and one of the nation's premiere concert venues. Now, thanks to an evolving landscape outside its door, it's being redeveloped into start-up friendly office space.

When Deej Lincoln bought Interior Products Company two years ago, he thought he would build upon the commercial millwork company’s reputation for creating beautiful libraries. While the company continues to do library work, a new business built on sustainability, recycling and a bit of nostalgia has evolved.

Reclaimed Cleveland harvests wood from Cleveland properties slated for demolition and turns what they find into functional works of art. “We wanted to bui... Read more >

Recent transplants to Cleveland arriving from so-called "big-ticket" metropolitan markets say that they are experiencing appreciable cost savings in terms of housing, transportation, entertainment and food. And that translates to a better standard of life with little lost in terms of quantity and quality of offerings.

This week BioEnterprise and Global Cleveland are hosting their fourth online biomedical job fair, hoping to attract top talent to the industry. “This is really driven by the growth in the biomedical sector in Northeast Ohio,” explains Aram Nerpouni, BioEnterprise interim CEO. “We’ve gone from 300 to 700 biomedical companies in the area. Cleveland is becoming a national hotbed for biomedical.”

The job fairs are an effective resource for employ... Read more >

It's crunch time, folks! In less than three weeks, the 2012 holiday season will be a memory. We feel your pain. To help, we've stitched together a provocative assortment of gift ideas that should knock out your list in no time flat. This year, keep it fresh, keep it tasty, keep it local.

To succeed as a region, Cleveland needs hungry, highly skilled immigrants willing to risk it all for a chance to build their dreams. With an estimated 30,000 open positions in high-skill industries in the region, the time is now to market Cleveland as a place friendly to outsiders. Fortunately, Radhika Reddy and others are on top of it.

Cleveland native Marcellus Nealy was "window shopping" for a camera on the Internet when he came across information about Canon’s Project Imaginat10n contest. The contest involves director Ron Howard selecting 91 photos in 10 categories to be made into films by celebrity directors. Nealy decided to enter, and his photo “Sharing a Smoke” was named a winner in the “relationship” category.
 
"While I was window shopping I stum... Read more >

That's no crass come-on, but rather an effort to advocate for a Cleveland-based bike-sharing network that has become popular in a number of U.S. cities. For a small fee, bike sharing allows patrons to rent a bike at self-service sites scattered about a city, then return the bike to another site.
 
Cleveland's Office of Sustainability recently issued a request to conduct a feasibility and implementation study on the service. Minneapolis, Chicago and Chattanooga... Read more >

A school garden is a real, living world, a type of lab that offers teachers a way to embed creativity, collaboration and love for nature into their curriculum, believes Carlton Jackson, a farmer, self-described "food evangelist" and proprietor of Tunnel Vision Hoops, a provider of hoop houses that allow for year-round food production.
 
The Cleveland-based company is offering Cuyahoga County public school students grades K-8 a chance to win a hoop house for ... Read more >

There’s a new radio station in town, playing adult album alternative (AAA) music. Boasting that it's a local station for Clevelanders, by Clevelanders, WLFM 87.7 FM Cleveland’s Sound is independently owned and operated by Tom Wilson and his partners. The group has been buying low-power television stations for the past 12 years. In 2008, they ventured into the low end of the radio dial with a smooth jazz station in Chicago. As former president and general manager of... Read more >