Talent : Buzz

ATHENS, Ohio (April 11, 2013)—Six Ohio University students shared the $10,000 grand prize of the inaugural Scripps Innovation Challenge on April 11 after presenting their idea for a mobile alarm clock app designed to encourage young people to consume news.

Broadcast journalism seniors Devin Bartolotta, Matt Digby, Glenn Janos, Leah Petrovich, Sarah Tranelli and management information systems junior Ryan Vibbert collaborated to design an app that would allow users to receive targeted news on their mobile devices at their desired time of day. Their challenge – to Craft a Strategy to Get More Young People to Consume News – was submitted by Ogden Newspapers.

“It started out as a class project and, as the idea developed, we realized it could be so much more,” said Tranelli. “We felt really confident about our idea and hoped we could come in here and get the judges to believe in it. Our professor, Mary Rogus, was behind us every step of the way, and we thank her.”

The Scripps Innovation Challenge, a campus-wide contest sponsored by the Scripps College of Communication, provided the opportunity for students to innovate creative solutions to actual challenges from the media industry.

Read the full story here.

Consider Columbus, Ohio, one of this nation’s “legacy cities” in the industrial heartland. In a review of the city’s accomplishments toward earning the Most Intelligent title, Robert Bell, founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, cites assets including Ohio State University, the Columbus Metropolitan Library and the innovation incubator TechColumbus as significant advances in smart technology application and education. The city is further lauded for its multi-sector partnerships, inclusion of citizens in visioning and transparency of process in decision making.

Read the full story here.

The economy has young people boomeranging back to flyover country cities to live cheap and chase their dreams. Read the full article here.

You don’t need to put down roots in New York or Silicon Valley to thrive in business today. John Dearborn, president of the nonprofit VC JumpStart Inc., offers three tips for maximizing resources in a mid-sized city. Read the full story here.

There is a growing disparity among cities that have a surfeit of college graduates, like Washington, and those, like Dayton, Ohio, that are trying to attract more grads, an analysis by the Brookings Institution indicated. College graduates are increasingly important economic drivers, particularly in cities that have largely lost their manufacturing sectors and the accessible jobs they provide.

Read the story here.

The Innovation Engine Accelerator is a digital media business accelerator located in Ohio University's business incubator, the award-winning Innovation Center.  Made possible by public and private support, the Innovation Engine Accelerator is launching its inaugural 10-week boot camp class providing seed funding of up to $20,000 each for five teams this summer.  Applications are available now. Click here to read the full article.

The America21 Project and BioEnterprise are hosts of a groundbreaking national conference dedicated to promoting and accelerating underrepresented minority healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship.  

The First Annual Minority Biomedical Entrepreneurship Conference will be held on May 21 – 22 at the Cleveland Marriott, overlooking the construction of the Cleveland Medical Mart and Convention Center. View event information here.

Dr. Hiroyuki Fujita is Founder, President, and CEO of Quality Electrodynamics in Cleveland, Ohio, and last on January 24th, 2012 he was a guest in the First Lady's box at the 2012 State of the Union. He reflects on the experience here.