Here’s a look at some of the news you may have missed from around Southeast Michigan’s innovation community:
—IRule, a Detroit-based startup that has created a smartphone-based remote control, won the Consumers Electronics Association’s Mark of Excellence award for “Control Product of the Year” at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. IRule was founded in 2009 by Itai Ben-Gal and Victor Nemirovsky, two friends and fellow audio-visual geeks who wanted to build the remote control of their dreams. The company’s online database stores codes for thousands of devices, as well as dozens of templates and layouts. Using the cloud, iRule’s customers can share new devices that they have programmed and the layouts they have created, Ben-Gal told Xconomy in a 2011 interview. The iRule app is available in the Apple store, on Google Play, and online.
—Walsh College’s Blackstone LaunchPad has announced its third annual “Make It Better” competition, which invites high school and community college students to describe in 1,000 words or less how they would redesign an existing product or service, or develop a new one, to make the state of Michigan or their community a better place to live. At stake are a total of 10 cash prizes, including two $500 awards, along with four Apple gift cards. (To enter, click here; the deadline is 5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 28. Winners will be announced in April.)
—To coincide with Co-Lab Detroit, the city’s first-ever celebration of co-working spaces, the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation has created a Detroit Co-Working Space Finder, now available online. As part of Co-Lab Detroit, seven of Detroit’s estimated 13 co-working spaces will welcome the public during open houses held during the week of Jan. 20. (To register to attend co-working space open houses, go to the Co-Lab Detroit website.)
—Systems in Motion (SIM), an enterprise software consultant with offices in the Ann Arbor area, announced last week that it will add at least 150 jobs at its Michigan Delivery Center in Pittsfield Township. SIM is looking to hire qualified technical specialists to fill various roles in agile application development, including architects and software developers, software quality assurance testers, data scientists, and database administrators. (For more information on a job with SIM, visit the company’s hiring page.)
