So much so that the region just last week played host to the 12th annual State Science Technology Institute conference where 400 professionals in public policy, government, academia, technology transfer and economic development heard our story.

These are serious times and it seems every day brings more bad news.  Positive regional news is out there, you just need to look for it a bit.  This article is a great place to start.

According to the article in the Beacon Journal, reXorce plans to use the money to hire up to 12 new engineers and locate a new base of operations.  While the Akron location has been “incredibly supportive in handling their growth” it simply isn’t big enough to handle the demonstrations systems reXorce plans to build.

reXorce is not looking for a new building however.   Their plan is to locate an old, unused building and renovate it into an advanced energy showcase.

COO Phil Brennan, as quoted in the article:

We are surrounded by resources we misuse.  The cost in energy to tear down a building and put up a new one is irresponsible. We’d rather bring an old building back to life.

Wait - an advanced energy company in Northeast Ohio gets a $5M investment and they not only want to stay in the region, but are socially responsible too?

NEOinc sure knows how to pick ‘em!

(Thanks to Paula Schleis, Beacon Journal business writer, for her continued focus entrepreneurial activity in the Akron area.  We need a few more Paula’s around the region!)

Knoticedelivers integrated marketing communications across email, web, mobile and emerging digital channels and is a JumpStart portfolio company.  Knotice is adding customers and growing quickly.  The Beacon Journal story provides some background on the company founders, why they are here in Northeast Ohio, and how bright their future looks.  (This is a 3 page story - be sure to click the page numbers to advance and read the entire article).

Congratulations Knotice!

The verdict?  It Works!

Torex makes a family of innovative hot and cold therapy products.  You can view the Does it Work? segment featuring Torex by clicking this link.  Of course, this is no surprise to us as the Torex team have been honing their products over the past few years, and are well on their way to graduating out of the incubator. 

But do you really know what they do?

You will now thanks to ABC News which recently featured the firm on their very popular Ahead of the Curve series.

Take a look here:

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4593319

The 15-year-old company first applied last year, according to Tim Lowe, VP of Sales. In addition to a power line for the military, the company also provides products to telecommunications, industrial and medical sectors.  The power plant has been in the works for 2 1/2 years and was demonstrated in February at a large military show in San Diego. He offered the example that soldiers could place the power plant in the back of a Humvee to power computers.

Dr. Allen Hunter, YSU Professor of Chemistry and principal investigator for CyberLabNet Project states “Zethus is the ideal collaborator as its underlying technology is aligned with the software needs for CyberLabNet.”  Hunter credits Jim Cossler, chief evangelist, YBI, for the introduction to Eric Parker from Zethus and Hunter and his YSU team are enthusiastic about the opportunity to collaborate with an YBI company.

In 2007, Congressman Tim Ryan (D-17th) secured a $911,000 Federal Appropriations through the U.S. Department of Defense to develop software, create workforce training modules and acquire robotics for CyberLabNet.  This summer, Hunter and Parker will travel to the Army Research Lab in Maryland to begin exploring specific applications of this technology in military settings that would benefit from remote testing capabilities.

About Zethus Software
Zethus Software is a privately-held software development firm focused on developing innovative solutions by using grid and cloud computing technologies to solve real-world business problems. Founded in 2003, the company’s customers include Fortune 100 companies as well as significant educational and institutional clients.  A portfolio company of the Youngstown Business Incubator, Zethus Software received the State of Ohio’s Edison Emerging Technology Award for its commitment to cutting-edge, emerging technological development. Visit http://zethussoftware.com/.

About YBI
The Youngstown Business Incubator is a 501 (c) 3 charitable, non-profit organization, with a primary mission to accelerate the start-up and development of scalable, technology-based companies in northeast Ohio. Located in Youngstown, portfolio companies have been awarded 17 intellectual property patents, developed 24 new commercial software applications and created over 230 high-skilled, technology jobs. YBI provides entrepreneurial assistance, facilities and technology support.  For more information about YBI, visit www.ybi.org.

YBI is also a member of the Northeast Ohio Incubator Collaborative, a group of five regional technology incubators, offering facilities and services to startups and entrepreneurs. 

One recent article caught our eye.  The article is a short interview of Zoltan Cendes on his experiences of starting a business while a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  The interview is a brief yet interesting looking into the challenges of commercializing research technology.  Zoltan is now Chairman and CTO of Ansoft, the company he founded.

The interview is a quick read.  We like the reinforcement of several entrepreneurial traits we always stress:

1. As a professor, used to hard work and 60 hour weeks
2. Bootstrapped and self-funded instead of looking for outside investment
3. Focus, optimism and persistence

Jim Zedella, president of IPA, was attracted to the MAGNET incubator primarily because of the wide array of entrepreneurial services, including management, marketing, networking and IT support.  These readily available services let IPA continue to focus on their core competency.  Marketing services in particular were extremely important in helping IPA build their brand and identity business coaching and networking provided by the program.    Another benefit was professional office space at a reasonable rate with a simple, no-hassle lease.  IPA’s incubator space was “turn-key” ready, with furniture, phone, voicemail and internet connectivity all in place and ready to go on day one of their lease.  This built-in functionality allowed IPA to immediately focus on building their business, not handling mundane office logistics.    The ability to focus on their core business and not worry about facilities issues was a key factor contributing to brisk growth.  The capital savings generated in the first 18 months allowed them to hire two staff members ahead of schedule; a critical accelerator for their business.    Zedella states that “MAGNET’s Entrepreneurial Services offer an environment that is financially attractive, and provides entrepreneurial camaraderie that contributes to enhancing the probability of making it through your first year and after.  It’s nice to know there are people there rooting for you and have the expertise to help you succeed.” Best of luck to Jim and his entire IPA team!

Mike Gesing runs a video blog called NEOhio.org.  Mike’s stated goal for the site is:

“The site will initially focus on the Entrepreneurial & Innovation effort in NEOhio: a look at the many people, companies and organizations trying to grow our future economy. It’s quite a cast of characters we have from entrepreneurs, incubators, investors and the myriad organizations we now have to help. Our emerging clusters in fuel cells, alternative energy, liquid crystals, biomed, instruments and controls, nano tech and more are a great start. We’ll try to profile many of the people behind them here. “

Over the last month or so, Mike has been visiting all five of the business incubators that make up NEOinc, doing video interview of not only incubator staff but also tenants.  Over time, Mike will be posting the rest of these article on his website, and we’ll be sure to let you know when they are available.

Mike just got the interviews he filmed at the MAGNET incubator.  In addition to the interview of Aria Analytic’s Chris Vacca, Mike also had a chance to talk with Bob Panthofer of Stanton Advanced Ceramics, a company getting ready to crack a $500B market opportunity.  In addition to Chris and Bob, you can see interviews with Wayne Zeman, MAGNET VP of Venture Development and Director of the business incubator, and Dave Crain, Entrepreneurial Expert.  To see all these interviews in one viewer, click here.

Like that embedded video browser that Mike’s using?  The one where both MAGNET and Youngstown video interviews are available (and soon to follow tabs for the other three NEOinc incubators)?  That’s Brightcove, an online service that I was unaware of until Mike brought it to my attention.   Think of Brightcove as YouTube for business.  With it, after you upload your edited video, you can create embedded video players for your websites and blogs like the ones on Mike’s video blog.  If you’re a start-up business or entrepreneur and would like to use online video, check out Brightcove’s professional products and services.

To see Brightcove in action on another site, check out these overviews of classes offered by the Key Enterpreneurial Development Center at Corporate College.  You might even find a course of two that could help you out.