It's not quite artificial intelligence but it sure comes close. Named one of the ten "World Changing Ideas" of 2010 by Scientific American, swarm intelligence is a biology-inspired computer algorithm that's starting to see commercial application. And most of that development occurred here, in Ann Arbor area research labs.
Wolverine Technical Staffing is one of those companies that can serve as a bellwether for Michigan's new economy.The 25-year-old firm helps place knowledge workers in IT jobs. The company has watched the number of IT job openings jump 20 percent over the last year. "We're just seeing more job opportunities," says Caroline Wessel, general manager of Wolverine Technical Staffing. "Our clients have more openings than we can fill."Wolverine Technical Staffing has also seen its client list expand by 20 percent in the same time period, allowing it to grow its staff to 11 people in Ann Arbor, plus 50-100 independent contractors in the field. It sees 2011 panning out the same way, which should allow the company to add another 1-2 positions."We have really expanded our client base," Wessel says. She adds that many of those clients are having a hard time filling those positions because the workforce hasn't caught up with the elevated skill set demanded by these companies. Source: Caroline Wessel, general manager of Wolverine Technical StaffingWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
Becton, Dickinson and Co. has acquired Ann Arbor-based Accuri Cytometers, making it the second University of Michigan spin-off exit in two consecutive business days.Although terms of the deal have not been disclosed, one of the start-up's shareholders, former CEO Jen Baird, described herself as "one happy camper" with the exit. Both she and a spokesperson from Becton, Dickinson and Co., commonly known as BD, declined to say how much the deal went for. However, Baird had a hard time containing her glee. "All of the investors are pretty happy right now."Accuri Cytometers develops and manufactures personal flow cytometers for researchers, specifically ones that measure T-cell counts while tracking and treating diseases like AIDS and cancer. It was spun out of U-M in 2005 and had grown to 87 people as of last July. Becton, Dickinson and Co., commonly known as BD, is the same medical device company that bought HandyLab last year and moved its operations out of Ann Arbor shortly after. It does not look like that will happen this time with Accuri Cytometers."Our current plan is to continue operations in Ann Arbor for the foreseeable future," says Colleen White, director of corporate communications for BD. Such statements from corporate spokespeople can often be taken with a grain of salt, but Baird, who no longer has an active role with the company, remains optimistic. "I am hopeful they will continue to invest in their Ann Arbor operations," she says.Accuri Cytometers is led by Jeff Williams, who was the CEO at HandyLab when it was acquired. He took the reigns from Baird a year ago in search of another profitable exit. Baird is now the CEO of Accio Energy, one of Michigan's most innovative renewable energy start-ups that promises to reinvent the wind turbine. She has no plans on taking her exit money and cashing out. In fact, the news couldn't have come at a better time for her when she is raising seed money for Accio Energy this week."I love building companies," Baird says. "I am looking forward to building Accio Energy up into an even bigger success."Source: Jen Baird, former CEO of Accuri Cytometers and Colleen White, director of corporate communications for Becton, Dickinson and Co.Writer: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
Lots of people in Michigan get nervous when they hear the word "acquisition" mixed with local companies. That is not the case with The Advisory Board Co.'s recent acquisition of University of Michigan spin-off Cielo MedSolutions.Paul Roscoe, an executive with The Advisory Board Co., said the Washington, D.C.,-based multi-national corporation plans to not only keep the start-up where it is, it also expects to expand Cielo MedSolution's presence in Ann Arbor beyond its current staff of eight people. "We're probably going to double their staff in short order," Roscoe says.Roscoe is the CEO of Crimson Business Intelligence Technology, a company that was acquired by and subsequently became a division of The Advisory Board Co. in 2008. The Advisory Board Co specializes in software and business intelligence solutions for the health-care industry, such as the digitization of medical records. About 15 percent of admissions into about 400 hospitals nationwide utilize the company's technology.Cielo MedSolutions, spun out of U-M in 2006, develops new software that ensures doctors connect with their patients when it's time for a checkup, test, or treatment they might otherwise forget. When The Advisory Board Co. went looking for a software firm that specialized in point-of-care solutions in the health-care industry, Cielo MedSolutions' name came up quickly."They were among the leading members in the market," Roscoe says.Source: Paul Roscoe, CEO of Crimson Business Intelligence TechnologyWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
Coming soon to Tree Town: sorely needed new downtown housing units. This summer, Farmington Hills developer Village Green will commence construction of Ann Arbor City Apartments, a 156-unit, 11-story building (with eight floors above grade) at the corner of First and Washington St. In a public-private partnership, the city of Ann Arbor will sell the corner lot to Village Green for approximately $3.3 million, says Tom Crawford, CFO for the city of Ann Arbor. The deal is set to close shortly before construction starts. A city-owned parking garage with approximately 244 spaces will sit below; the garage is to be financed with a $9 million DDA-issued bond.The partnership has been successful because "It meets a lot of the criteria the city's been looking for as far as building some affordable housing, increasing downtown density, and underground parking," Crawford notes. Sixteen of the units will be designated affordable housing. He also points to the city's flexibility while the developer pulled together financing in the midst of the economic turndown. Washington Street, says Susan Pollay, executive director of the Ann Arbor DDA, has become a vital downtown corridor. "We would now have at least 150 people living in an area that would help to activate the area, that would be going to the YMCA, would be going up to Main Street for a cup of coffee, that would be heading to work in the morning up at the university campus.""It's very exciting to us to see West Washington taking shape," Pollay adds. "What's there now are surface parking lots, which are not the best use of land."Sources: Tom Crawford, CFO for the city of Ann Arbor; Susan Pollay, executive director of the Ann Arbor DDAWriter: Tanya Muzumdar
A tip for Ann Arbor residents wanting to cut emissions during Ann Arbor's Energy Challenge Month while keeping a modicum of driveway sanity: Try electric snow throwers, an eco-friendly option to CO²-spewing engine-powered snow blowers. The first annual Energy Challenge is asking residents to cut their carbon footprints by 5% this month."It doesn't sound like a huge number but if we were able to do just 2% [reduction] each year we would get ourselves to 80% below 2000 emissions by 2050, and that's where the science says we need to get," says Andrew Brix, energy programs manager for the city of Ann Arbor. Residents can log their eco-saving actions each week on the Energy Challenge website, which then calculates the shrinking footprint of those deeds. Those activities are experimental and open-ended in some ways, Brix says. "It's everything from inflating your tires to taking the bus to buying local food to just as simple as turning your thermostat down." While February is the month for residents to show off their numbers, CO² savings is a year-round blitzkrieg for the city's energy department. In other project updates, the LED lights are in at Cobblestone Farm, Mack Pool, and fire stations 1 and 6. The exterior lights at the Wheeler Service Center are also in, with the exception of the fueling canopy. And over the course of last summer and fall, the city installed 250 LED streetlights in residential neighborhoods, Brix says. Bids came in last week for another 500 of those lights to be installed this summer along commercial corridors such as Stadium Blvd, Washtenaw, and Maple Rd.By this summer, the shade structure that's being installed at Veterans Pool deck will be topped with solar panels. "Instead of just putting a fabric covering or a roof on it or something like that, we're going to use solar so that we actually make use of the sunlight that hits that," Brix explains. Solar hot water and photovoltaics at Fire Station 6 are also planned for the warm months.Source: Andrew Brix, energy programs manager for the city of Ann ArborWriter: Tanya Muzumdar
The architectural design of the University of Michigan Museum of Art has been deemed on par with that of the Horizontal Skyscraper in Shenzhen, China, and the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece – all members of a select group of ten projects worldwide bestowed with the 2011 American Institute of Architects (AIA) Honor Award for architecture.The museum now sports a 53,000-square-foot addition and a full restoration of its 1910 Beaux-Arts building. Designed by Allied Works Architecture, with Integrated Design Solutions serving as the associate architect. The finer points of the $42 million project include more than double the display space for collections and temporary exhibits, open-storage galleries, a 225-seat auditorium, and a curatorial research center.In Michigan, it seems, innovation in museum design is not a rare artifact. The Grand Rapids Art Museum is the first LEED-certified new construction art museum in the nation.What sets the U-M Museum of Art apart and enabled it to garner the award, says Executive Director Joe Rosa, is "[The architect's] massing from the existing to the new works quite beautifully, as well as the notion of transparency through the new addition, juxtaposed to a Beaux Arts building which has no sense of transparency. So you get this compositional feel when you walk around the building that makes both worlds work quite well together, and of course as our collection is historical in scope, from Asia onto tomorrow's makers, we have a mission to show a breadth of art and our building allows us that."The museum is now 100,000 square feet in size, about half the size of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Rosa notes. "We are quite a large university art museum and one of the oldest and now...we can really go into the 21st century as being a leading institution for how we envision art in the future and educate our students to have the edge culturally and also ask those questions that might not happen in a free-standing museum."Source: Joe Rosa, executive director of the University of Michigan Museum of ArtWriter: Tanya Muzumdar
Braving the wilds of winter, a pair of wine writers from Fort Worth, Texas marveled at Ann Arbor's cultural, culinary, and entrepreneurial know-how. Excerpt: "From smaller businesses such as Ann Arbor Farmer’s market, Vinology - a restaurant and wine bar, to Mediterrano, and Zingerman’s, which is a community of businesses, these are all perfect examples of impresarios filling a niche in Ann Arbor and its suburbs. Quality of life and education are paramount here. To set the stage, we walked through snow flurries to The Gandy Dancer restaurant at the Historic Railroad Station to eat and also enjoy their holiday decorations. From the old-fashioned decor of the restaurant, we watched Amtrak and freight trains move on these tracks. Makes for a colorful, active atmosphere for locals and tourists as well. In the heart of the energetic University of Michigan campus is the UM Museum of Modern Art, a jaw-dropping, not typical museum representing 150 years of collecting and 18,000 works of art in its permanent collection. A new wing, minimalistic in style, has works of art from Chinese painting to Tiffany architectural glass that draw the visitor forward into new spaces. Worth a visit!" Read the rest of the story here.
If gung-ho could be bottled, Matt and Rene Greff would probably put it in a microbrew. Owners of ever-popular Ann Arbor Brewing and Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti, the couple are practically poster children for the region's unique personality. Quirky, entrepreneurial, civic-minded, and opinionated, Concentrate talks business, politics, downtown development and, oh yeah, beer with this dynamic duo.
If you missed last week's speaker event with Sam Valenti IV fear not. We've got you covered. Check out this video copy of Sam's talk, which included the who, how and why of Ghostly International, what they're doing now, where they're headed next and why Ann Arbor is the perfect home base for this cutting edge music label.
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