Artsy and green-minded. It's so Ann Arbor. A grade-schooler at Logan Elementary is a finalist for the Google Doodle contest and may end up on the search engine's main launch page. Excerpt: Hannah Hu of Logan Elementary school is one of 50 finalists in the contest to design the company's logo for a day. This year's theme is "If i could invent one thing to make the world a better place." Read the rest here.
A year of change is underway at the Ann Arbor School for the Performing Arts. The growing music academy is preparing to move from its 3,000 square foot S. Main St. location to share a 17,000 square foot location with Conlara School on Jewett Ave., and soon will unveil a new name as well. "Over time, our larger group programs have needed and wanted to grow, but the space was prohibitive," says Kasia Bielak-Hoops, executive director of the school. "Things were bumping into each other. We found this opportunity and it has flown so smoothly from the beginning." With its primarily after-school programming, partnering with a school was an ideal choice for the Ann Arbor School for the Performing Arts. With Conlara's business wrapping up as the music school gets started each day, and the school facility's non-traditional design, even large ensemble practices will be easily accommodated seamlessly. In addition to new digs, the Ann Arbor School for the Performing Arts will soon have a new name. After a series of focus groups, surveys and a voting process, the organization's new identity will be revealed next week. "The school has been going through a transformational process over the last year," says Bielak-Hoops. "We refocused our mission. We recently went back and looked at our guiding principles. This rebranding is a part of going out to the community to say, 'This is who we are.'" The music school will announce the new name to their community first, will post the announcement to the public via Facebook. The transition to the Conlara School location will begin over the summer and will be complete by August. The school has 250 students enrolled, and Bielak-Hoops hopes to grow that number by about 40 students each year in the new space. Source: Kasia Bielak-Hoops, Ann Arbor School for the Performing Arts Writer: Natalie Burg
Backyard Brains has come a long way since its inception in 2010. Back then it was a side project of a couple of neuroscientists looking to sell a few insect neuroscience kits to teach grade-school students how the brain works. Today it is a multi-national corporation selling those kits on three continents. The Ann Arbor-based company expanded into South America last year focusing on the Chilean education market. It has since cemented its presence there and is now expanding into Africa, making sales in Nigeria, Uganda, Morocco and Ethiopia, among other nations. "We're now in 60 countries," says Tim Marzullo, co-founder of Backyard Brains. "That's pretty exciting." Marzullo and Greg Gage launched Backyard Brains with its RoboRoach product. The testing kit enables students to control insects via antennas. Its flagship product is SpiderBox, a bioamplifier that allows users to hear and see spikes of neurons in invertebrates. Backyard Brains sales of these products have increased an average of 5 percent a month over the last year. Revenue spiked to $70,000 last November (the business’ busy season and when it struck a partnership with Harvard) and reached $40,000 in February, which was still up considerably from a year. International sales, especially in Chile, are helping drive the company's growth. "It (the Chilean market) is where Backyard Brains was three years ago," Marzullo says. "We're making sales there every month now." The growth has allowed Backyard Brains to add staff. It has hired three people (an engineer, an accountant and a designer) in the U.S. over the last year, expanding its staff to six full-time employees and six part-timers. It also employs one full-time person and three part-timers in Chile. Source: Tim Marzullo, co-founder of Backyard Brains Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
Technology has dramatically changed the global workforce. A new charter school planned for Ypsilanti intends to prepare the next generation of students for it. Global Tech Academy, a partnership between Global Educational Excellence and Eastern Michigan University, will open on E. Forest in August, bringing technology and year-round learning to K-5 students. "The people I've talked to are very excited," says Global Tech Academy Principal Robin Tolbert. "We have very high expectations. It's definitely going to be a nurturing and welcoming environment." Global Tech Academy has a goal to enroll 200 to 250 students in its first year of operation. Those students will have access to teacher-controlled tablets, as well as textbooks to assist with their learning. Tolbert says the digital technology will aid in learning world languages, as well as prepare the students for the new MEAP test format. The new charter school is the result of Global Educational Excellence research that showed Ypsilanti had a need for more technology-focused education opportunities Tolbert says her love of Ypsilanti as well as the school's focus makes her happy to be a part of it. "I have a love of technology and I'm a long term resident of the community," she says. "I am excited about being a part of educating the students in the community where I went to school." The 14-classroom school is now under renovation. Updates will include improvements to the kitchen, gym and cafeteria, increasing the size of classrooms and creating a parent resource room. A staff of 15 to 20 will be employed at the new school. Source: Robin Tolbert & Mohamad Issa, Global Tech Academy Writer: Natalie Burg
Eagle Imperium Team 3322 from Skyline High School has six weeks to build a 120-pound remote-controlled robot before the first district competition on March 14. They have limited resources, limited funds and limited time. Nobody is panicking. Yet.
Taking our blinders off to experience a foreign culture often translates into new ways of seeing our hometowns. Recent U-M graduate Peter Wagner writes on his teaching stint in Thailand's villages, and on what ants can show us.
Data breach has become a big problem in our Internet-reliant age. As a result APPS has decided that it needs cyber liability insurance coverage. Who knew there was such a thing? Excerpt: "While Target fights to recover from the breach and is now paying for free credit monitoring for all of the affected customers, other organizations are looking into the difference that cyber liability insurance could make in case they should ever experience their own data breaches. Ann Arbor Public Schools has realized that this threat is a real one and that a data breach could be very harmful to them if they were to experience one without this additional security protection." Read the rest here.
The computer gaming industry earns more than $60 billion dollars each year. Hollywood's use of computer animation only grows. Yet computer programming is not a focus in K-12 education in Michigan. The folks at GameStart see both an educational and entrepreneurial opportunity. They offer programming classes to 3rd through 8th grade students with a focus on the game that sets every kid's heart a-flutter.
With over 6,800 international students, U-M continues to attract students from around the globe. Excerpt: "Michigan's first two international students -- one from Mexico, one from Wales -- enrolled in 1847. Now the prestigious Big Ten university hosts the 8th-largest population in the country, 78% of whom come from Asia." More here.
Gym America is a pretty unique business, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that the growing gymnastics training facility couldn't quite find the right building to expand into among existing properties for sale in the area. Rather than settle, owner Claudia Kretschmer decided to not only build new in order to serve the 200 kids on the Gym America waiting list but to expand into new programming. "We currently hold 700 at capacity here," says Kretschmer. "We'll be able to take at least our waiting list, which has been pretty steady throughout the past year." The $2 million, 19,000 square foot facility will be built on State St. and Hines Dr. in Pittsfield Twp. The location was perfect, says Kretschmer as it is near their current facility and will provide room for the numerous changes that will come along with the business' move. In addition to taking on students on her waiting list, she'll add dance classes, a pre-school activity area, retail space, a pre-school and more. "It will be a certified preschool, teaching movement, language and music," Kretschmer says. "They'll be using both sides of the brain. There won't be anything electronic, it will all be using creativity and using their minds in a different way." Work on the new Gym America building in the spring, and Kretschmer hopes to open the doors to the new facility by Thanksgiving. She expects the number of children served to jump from 700 to at least 1,000, and will hire 15 to 20 new staff members to accommodate the additional kids and programming. Source: Claudia Kretschmer, Gym America Writer: Natalie Burg
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