The expansion of early education in greater Cleveland received a $10 million boost last week when Cuyahoga County Council and executive Armond Budish reached a biennial budget agreement for 2016 and 2017.
 
The two-year investment creates the Cuyahoga Early Childhood Trust, a public-private partnership meant to attract private funds to continue the push for universal, high-quality pre-kindergarten education to children across the county.

I... Read more >

Vita Urbana, a multi-service convenience store, is scheduled to open in mid-January in the Shoreway Building, 1260 West 76th St., overlooking Edgewater Park.

Designed with a sense of community, the compact, 4,000 square-foot space will pack a host of services for residents of the Shoreway Building and the entire Battery Park neighborhood.
 
“Vita Urbana will combine the convenience of a coffee shop, an artisanal grocery store, and a full service ba... Read more >

As a biomedical engineering graduate student at CWRU, Punkaj Ahuja was working in 2010 on applications for a core sensor his team was developing.

Then the idea for a rapid blood test using the same technology came to him. By October 2014, he had formed Apollo Medical Devices – a company that is developing a low-cost, accurate and rapid blood analysis system.The company has offices at BioEnterprise.
 
“Our device uses rapid bloo... Read more >

In 2009, Cleveland City Council updated its non-discrimination law to include transgender people. Then council added an amendment.

 But there was a problem with the wording, activists in the transgender community say. Council added an amendment to the law stating that employers and places of public accommodations could tell a transgender individual which restroom – men’s or women’s -- they could or could not use,  instead of leaving that decisi... Read more >

The aromas of fresh baked bread and pastries will soon waft through the streets of Cleveland when Bloom Artisan Bakery and Café opens two locations next year. In a social enterprise venture, Towards Employment, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping low income and disadvantaged adults achieve self-sufficiency through employment, announced last week that it will open bakeries in both Public Square and on the Cleveland State campus.

“The Towards Employm... Read more >

As much as she likes to show off her ceramics, artist Gina DeSantis wanted a new way to highlight the works she creates in her studio at the Screw Factory in Lakewood. “I hate showing my work in galleries,” she declares. “It just sits on a white pedestal and it’s like, ‘oh look, a mug.’”

Then DeSantis started thinking about the whole farm-to-table movement, and the practice of sourcing food locally. She thought... Read more >

The West Creek Conservancy, a group focused on preserving natural habitats and expanding opportunities to experience nature, is developing a new mobile app that will allow users to locate a watershed, map water-related public access points and learn more about that river or stream.
 
Developers hope the app will help people get out an explore Ohio’s Lake Erie basin. The app will serve as a mobile version of ODNR’s Coastal and River Acce... Read more >

Northeast Ohio’s tech industry is not only growing, it’s thriving says OHTec’s 2015 NEO Tech Industry Report. The organization conducted the same survey in 2014 as it did in the end of 2010 and recent results show an increase in employment, revenue and overall growth.

“Four years ago we used the same survey to get a snapshot of what the industry looks like,” explains OHTec director Brad Nellis. “We wanted to see what it looks ... Read more >

For 14 years Christie Murdoch has called Tremont home to her eclectic boutique Banyan Tree – selling unique clothing, jewelry, accessories and gifts to loyal customers. Last October, The Banyan Box became one of  the first tenants of Small Box Cleveland – a market of shops in renovated shipping containers.

 
Now, Murdoch is moving east and about to open her third Banyan Tree store at 11440 Uptown Alley in University ... Read more >

Jim Conti found a hobby in making wine five years ago. While his friends loved his wine, he wanted to do something with sediment left at the bottom of his bottles.

“I didn’t want to throw it away,” he recalls. “I thought about what I could do with it. I tried it, and it was pretty good.”

Then one day it came to Conti: Why not make jams out of the sweet sediment left over from the wine her created? After many recipe trials and taste t... Read more >