Biz Plan Contest Aims To 'Accelerate Michigan'
If you're curious as to what Michigan will be famous for next, you might want to swing by Ann Arbor Friday and Saturday morning.
The former Pfizer Inc. Ann Arbor research complex off Plymouth Road, to be precise, now renamed the University of Michigan North Campus Reserach Complex.
That's where well over 300 would-be entrepreneurs and those who would help them succeed are gathered for Accelerate Michigan, which modestly bills itself as the world's largest business plan competition, with $1 million in prizes.
The event kicked off Thursday afternoon with welcomes from Dave Egner, executive director of the New Economy Initiative for Southeastern Michigan, and Ken Rogers, president of Automation Alley, and an overview of university research creating new jobs in Michigan from Paul M. Hunt, senior associate vice president for research and graduate studies at Michigan State University.
Egner said one of the aims of the event was to counter how Michigan is "often portrayed by the media -- as an antiquated, rust belt part of the world."
Rogers noted that 600 companies had applied for the Accelerate Michigan competition.
"We're rebounding from tumultuous times, we all know that, but we're coming out the other side with new businesses and technologies," he said, adding that the aim of the conference was "identifying Michigan as open for innovation. If you want to make anything in the world, you can make it here."
Hunt mentioned several research successes at MSU, including:
* Work by associate professor Norbert Mueller on a high-efficiency, so-called "Humphrey cycle" engine that had attracted a Department of Energy grant; * green chemistry for the pesticide and pharmaceutical industries, developed by chemistry professors Robert E. Maleczka Jr. and Milton R. Smith III, that won a national 2008 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge award and spawned an Ann Arbor-based spinout company that is now testing its processes at the MSU Biotechnology Institute in Holland; and
* research on how heartworm medications work that will benefit millions of Africans who take the same drug to fight dreaded tropical diseases. (See www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/health/16global.html.)
Later Thursday afternoon, a panel discussed entrepreneurial opportunities in the defense and homeland security industries. They said that like all areas of government, expenses are being watched closely and the era of a huge, freespending military is over.
But the panel said there remain huge opportunities in green military transportation and in autonomous vehicles. Both those advances help to address the huge risk in transporting fuel in battle zones -- green technologies mean less fuel needs to be transported, autonomous vehicles mean soldiers don't have to do it.
And even with cuts, the Pentagon's research budget for small companies remains a staggering $1 billion, panelists said.
The event continues through Saturday, with winners of that $1 million announced around noon.
More at www.acceleratemichigan.com.
(c) 2010, WWJ Newsradio 950.
