$2M Achieves Liftoff For Detroit Launch Pad

Wayne State University in Detroit and Walsh College in Troy, MI, will get an entrepreneur training program called The Launch Pad off the ground thanks to a $2 million grant from the Blackstone Charitable Foundation. Detroit’s New Economy Initiative will partner with New York-based Blackstone to launch the program that it hopes will be come a “national model for fostering entrepreneurship through higher education.” A similar program at the University of Miami attracted more than 1,000 students and young alumni who received support enabling them to create 45 new businesses and 102 new jobs, according to Blackstone.

Author: Howard Lovy

Howard Lovy is a veteran journalist who has focused primarily on technology, science and innovation during the past decade. In 2001, he helped launch Small Times Magazine, a nanotech publication based in Ann Arbor, MI, where he built the freelance team and worked closely with writers to set the tone and style for an emerging sector that had never before been covered from a business perspective. Lovy's work at Small Times, and on one of the first nanotechnology-themed blogs, helped him earn a reputation for making complex subjects understandable, interesting, and even entertaining for a broad audience. It also earned him the 2004 Prize in Communication from the Foresight Institute, a nanotech think tank. In his freelance work, Lovy covers nanotechnology in addition to technological innovation in Michigan with an emphasis on efforts to survive and retool in the state's post-automotive age. Lovy's work has appeared in many publications, including Wired News, Salon.com, the Wall Street Journal, The Detroit News, The Scientist, the Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report, Michigan Messenger, and the Ann Arbor Chronicle.