MedWish International, a Cleveland company that recycles medical supplies and equipment discarded by local hospitals, medical device companies and individuals by redistributing them to developing nations in desperate need of such items, won the $100,000 technology upgrade grand prize in Toshiba’s Helping the Helpers Technology Makeover.

MedWish beat out 150 U.S. non-profit charities by submitting a two-minute video to Toshiba for Good Facebook page, explaining how t... Read more >

As local artists with a common love of vintage art tools, friends Jamye Jamison, Elizabeth Emery and Wendy Partridge decided there was a need for some uniquely Cleveland promotional goods. So they formed CLE Collectiv, which produces a line of handmade note cards that celebrate all things Cleveland.
 
The trio creates the cards at Zygote Press using handset, vintage metal and wood type printing materials on 1950s-era Vandercook proofing presses. The cards are two-colo... Read more >

Shaker Launchhouse co-founder/marketing Dar Caldwell describes the business accelerator as a "thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem." That ecosystem will welcome 10 new inhabitants this coming fall thanks to funding from Ohio's New Entrepreneurs (ONE) Fund.
 
The $200,000 grant will be "a welcome addition here, allowing us to ramp up even more," Caldwell says. Launchhouse already provides dozens of member companies with all sorts of support, from ... Read more >

Freshbag, which offers corporate wellness programs and an online fresh foods-shopping and delivery service, is growing faster than founders Ian Wong and Max Wilberding anticipated. The company is adding to its current six pickup locations and forming new partnerships.
 
Later this month, Freshbag will add 1-2-1 Fitness, on the Case campus, as a new pick up location. Wong says more locations are in the works. Furthermore, the company is expanding its chef repertoire wi... Read more >

Local jobs in the biomedical field are plenty and area companies are having trouble finding qualified people to fill them. To help remedy that, Global Cleveland and BioEnterprise have teamed up to host a virtual biomedical job fair March 26-30 to attract talented people in the field to the region.
 
“One of the consistent complaints we hear is that small and large biomedical companies in the region are not getting enough talent to meet their growth desires,&rdqu... Read more >

Ohio City Inc. was named the inaugural winner of the Enterprise Community Innovation Awards, held on Tuesday, March 6 at CSU’s Levin College of Urban Affairs. The event, hosted by Enterprise Community Partners, which helps find affordable housing options, was sponsored through KeyBank. It was designed to recognize organizations creating new and lasting community development solutions in Greater Cleveland.
 
Ohio City received a $25,000 grant to support its Marke... Read more >

Global Cleveland officially opened its Welcome Hub doors in February with the goal of attracting new residents to town over the next 10 years. The center opened on February 7 with a ribbon cutting ceremony at its home on 200 Public Square.
 
"The opening of the Welcome Hub is an important milestone for Global Cleveland. Our objective is to attract 100,000 newcomers in the next 10 years," says Global Cleveland president Larry Miller. "It is important to ... Read more >

Someday, perhaps, we'll power our ever-growing number of personal electronic devices with something sustainable like biofuels or sunlight. Until then, the nPower PEG (personal energy device) will do nicely. Tremont Electric's clever gadget converts the motion of walking or running into energy, which it stores in a battery until you're ready to recharge your cell phone or iPod.
 
Cool, right? The only problem to date has been getting hold of one.
 ... Read more >

Thanks to a grant from the Cleveland Foundation, the Cleveland Public Library has plans to open six new learning centers that will serve patrons of all ages. A $162,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation will help fund the learning centers, which will be established at the Fleet, Fulton, Sterling, Collinwood, Eastman and Langston Hughes library branches.
 
“I’m really excited about the learning centers,” says CPL executive director Felton Thomas. &l... Read more >

OnShift Software, a leader in web-based staff scheduling and shift management software for the healthcare industry, closed $3 million in series B financing. The funding will help OnShift meet the rising demand to manage healthcare costs.

OnShift is experiencing fast, significant growth, having achieved a 400 percent increase in annual revenue in 2011. The company’s customer base has surged to more than 600 in the past year. The funding will be used to accelerate OnS... Read more >

How would you spend three days on a bus with strangers? If reading, watching movies or sleeping are among your top choices, then the Startup Bus is not for you.
 
The destination is the South By Southwest (SXSW) technology conference in Austin, Texas, but that's almost beside the point. Startup Bus is all about the journey -- three days on the road, brainstorming and launching new companies with fellow hackers (programmers), hipsters (designers) and hustlers (entr... Read more >

When it comes to making challenging New Year’s resolutions, Josh Schwarz knows how to set the bar high and deliver results.

The Case Western Reserve University sophomore is a computer science major, and his  resolution for 2011 was to create one Facebook application a week -- 52 in all. To his credit, Schwarz met the goal -- on time and on target.

“I’ve always been into computers,” Schwarz explains. “I’m constantly wanting... Read more >

The effort to build a world-class biomedical industry in Northeast Ohio took another step forward last week, when JumpStart Inc. invested $250,000 in Milo Biotechnology, a new company formed to pursue promising treatments for muscle degeneration.

Columbia Station native Al Hawkins will serve as Milo's CEO. The former director of new ventures at Boston University, Hawkins returned to Northeast Ohio last year to serve as CEO in Residence at BioEnterprise, the Cleve... Read more >

With a strong manufacturing infrastructure and more than 630,000 skilled workers, Ohio has the opportunity to become one of the most attractive states in the U.S. for clean energy manufacturers, according to the Ohio BlueGreen Apollo Alliance. Yet while Ohio has created policies to make clean manufacturing a priority, it needs to create further incentives to spur growth, according to The Ohio Green Manufacturing Action Plan (GreenMAP), a report by the Alliance.

“Suc... Read more >

A partnership between two Ohio medical device companies could make getting a good night's sleep easier for people who suffer from sleep apnea.
 
The new SleepView portable sleep monitor and web portal lets doctors monitor patients’ breathing and other sleep patterns at home. The device meets American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s diagnostic standards, and offers quicker, more efficient and cost-effective diagnosis and treatment.
 
Midma... Read more >

To grow Ohio’s considerable clout in the aerospace industry, the state’s leaders are looking north to Canada as an important source of trade partnerships.

The Canada-Ohio Aerospace Summit held last month in Cleveland attracted a large number of Canadian and Ohioan aerospace business leaders and government representatives. It was initiated by the Ohio Aerospace Institute to help industry leaders get to know each other better with the hope of nourishing business... Read more >

Shaker LaunchHouse, the pre-seed investment fund and business accelerator, is hosting a gala on Saturday, February 18 at the Cleveland Skating Club to raise awareness of the more than 200 entrepreneurial activities hosted by LaunchHouse each year.
 
“All of the stuff that we do, a lot of the costs are incurred by LaunchHouse,” explains founder and managing partner Todd Goldstein. “So we decided to put on the gala to raise awareness.” Events inc... Read more >

LifeServe Innovations, which is developing a percutaneous tracheostomy introducer dilator, recently
received $75,000 from the Lorain Innovation Fund. The device allows medical personnel to place a tracheotomy tube with greater ease and with fewer procedural complications than existing systems.
 
Co-founders Zach Bloom and Rick Arlow first came up with the idea as a class assignment while attending Lehigh University. “We were looking for problems to solve in ... Read more >

CitizenGroove has changed the way music schools take applications. CEO John Knific and three CWRU classmates wanted to solve the paper problem involved with applying to music schools.

“We were initially inspired by the problem music school were having -- they were getting 1,500 to 3,000 DVDs with bundles of paper,” recalls Knific. “We thought, every kid who is applying to music school knows how to use YouTube and FaceBook and other social media.”Read more >

NorTech has announced 14 finalists in its 12th annual Innovation Awards. The winners will be announced at a ceremony on Thursday, March 22 at LaCentre in Westlake.
 
The awards, which for the past four years have been co-sponsored with Crain’s Cleveland Business, honors the top innovations in technologies such as advanced energy, advanced materials, bioscience, flexible electronics and instrument controls.

“The NorTech Innovation Awards showcase b... Read more >