Grand Rapids is quickly becoming one of Michigan’s most creative cities. Events like ArtPrize and the thriving community of DIY artists and business owners is making the city a destination for many visitors nationwide. One of the most recent additions to this creative atmosphere is called Start Garden, an organization that loans increments of $5,000, $20,000 and beyond to some of Michigan’s most creative and innovative projects. Most recently, they have funded one of our own CE staffer’s projects to develop a mobile application called Routebook (see Jessie’s post on Routebook here.) Along with her team of other MSU students, they received a gift of $5,000 to produce a first model of the application that will provide bus, bike, car, and other routes to any destination, along with a typical alarm clock.
The Routebook team presenting at update night!
Start Garden is doing really great work for Michigan entrepreneurs by investing money back into our state’s ideas and helping to make Michigan a vibrant, creative, and successful state.
Every week, the company invests $5,000 each for two companies which are selected by the Start Garden team and also by “people’s choice”. These teams are given 3 months to turn their cash prize into real-results, presenting their work and prototypes at the Start Garden review night.
Last Thursday, a group of CE staff attended the February update night, to cheer on our co-worker and to learn more about the great creative projects that are developing in Michigan everyday.
We are excited and thrilled to have the opportunity to work in a place that challenges us to create, make, and share our work with the world. Opportunities like this, I feel, are directly related to the positive, collaborative support I receive at the CE everyday. I look forward to the opportunity to attend more events like this, and to continue to be challenged and pushed by creatives in my local Michigan community. It is a vibrant time to be living in Michigan, and I am excited to be witnessing the positive creative changes happening within our local economies.