Columbus : Featured Stories

From entrepreneurship competitions that offer prizes to top startups at Ohio colleges to an array of enticing resources that connect young talent to jobs, the Buckeye State is plugging up brain drain and turning it into brain gain.

Back in 2011, our sister publication Fresh Water Cleveland ran a feature about Ohio's newly instituted Film Production Tax Credit, which helped attract big-budget productions like "The Avengers" and "Alex Cross," plus smaller films like "Take Shelter" and "Fun Size." Fresh Water decided to revisit the topic to see how it's working out for Cleveland, and Ohio.

With 84 percent of Kickstarter's top projects shipped late, is this crowdfunding tool really all it's cracked up to be? Successful designer Chris Hawker examines whether Kickstarter is right for inventors and finds that the product development process often doesn't line up with crowdfunding deadlines. Inventors should go into the process with eyes wide open to get the best results.

Two new hackerspaces have just joined a host of shops across the state. hiVelocity took a peek inside these quirky garage shops and found everything we didn't expect, from kettles of brewing beer to pinball machines. But nothing was more inviting than the hackers themselves.

Ohio's technology start-up landscape has grown in leaps from the virtual wasteland it was a decade ago, with brainy go-getters from across the state pushing the upsurge. Find out how these entrepreneurs were able to get a toehold in the space and just how Ohio is growing its new economic garden.

Ohio State University graduate Peter Michaelidis developed his idea for Pushpins while studying at Harvard University. He now returns to OSU as a guest lecturer to share his experiences creating a venture-backed company.

As the nation searches for clean energy sources that depend less on fossil fuels and more on advanced and alternative energy, Ohio is steadily becoming an epicenter for cutting edge fuel cell technology.

From bio-based milk cartons to asphalt, the Ohio Bioproducts Innovation Center at the Ohio State University has helped companies across the state to develop products from bio-based materials. Now the Center is playing a role in its biggest project yet, a $300M biorefinery that could power over 30,000 homes.