Northeast Ohio's top computer programmers, doctors, patient advocates, entrepreneurs and other healthcare professionals will use their talents in innovation and technology to address problems facing healthcare at the first-ever Cleveland Medical Hackathon on September 26th and 27th at the Global Center for Health Innovation.
 
The event is designed to leverage the region’s strength in healthcare against technology and diverse skills in medical innovation. Lead partners behind the Cleveland MedHack include Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, CWRU, Ingenuity Cleveland, Flashstarts, MetroHealth System and BioEnterprise.
 
“Hackathons have been very successful in uniting people for a successful cause,” explains Will Morris, associate Chief Information Officer for the Cleveland Clinic. “This is about better healthcare delivery – better, faster, cheaper. It wasn’t so much ‘why don’t we do this” as it was ‘why aren’t we doing this.’”
 
Nesco Resource, one of the nation’s top staffing and HR firms with headquarters in Mayfield Heights, is sponsoring the Nesco Innovation Awards, which will be awarded to the hackathon teams that excel in developing projects that lead to out-of-the-box solutions. 
 
“Nesco Resource has been a long-time Cleveland based company that has been about connecting talented engineers and IT people with needs in the community,” says James Krouse, Nesco’s director of marketing and communications. “We’re happy to be presenting this event in that tradition.”
 
First place concepts will receive $3,000, second place will get $1,500 and third place will receive $500.
 
Organizers are hoping hundreds of participants will attend the MedHack and that it will become an annual event. “This is truly a grassroots effort with an eye toward the North Star of the global issue of how we deliver better patient care,” says Morris.
 
The event is free to attend, but applications are required to participate. The deadline is to apply is Wednesday, September 2nd.

Mohammad Noormal, who resettled in Cleveland in 2014, now leads the Learning Garden and Production Farm at Urban Community School.

A new report shows that while some progress has been made in improving the schools, there is still a long way to go. The conditions are now right for faster changes, leaders say.

SEA Change, a collaborative social enterprise accelerator that provides funding, training and coaching to civic-minded companies, is taking applications for its second round of companies to participate in its accelerator.

Thirteen businesses with a social and economic cause participated in last year’s accelerator and eight companies went on to compete for, and ultimately received, a portion of $50,000 in total funding. Rust Belt Riders and Vineyards and Biocellar of Chateau Hough were among the top companies to receive funding.
 
This year SEA Change has at least $60,000 in funding and hopes to accept 10 applicants, depending on the applications they get. “We’re looking for the best business ideas that want to improve the community,” says Mike Shafarenko, director of Civic Commons IdesStream, one of the lead collaborators for SEA Change. “Last year we has a wide variety of social enterprises.” He says they are expecting about 50 companies to apply this year.
 
This year’s accelerator will operate a little differently than last year. “We’re re-developing the accelerator a little bit by using different elements being used across the country,” Shafarenko says. “We’re making it equal parts training and mentorship with a lot of hands-on training and more experiential opportunities than last year.”
 
Those chosen for the accelerator will participate in a 16 week program of eight weeks of training and eight weeks of pitch preparation and coaching.
 
While the program doesn’t being until October, applications are due by Saturday, August 15 by 8pm.

This weekend, celebrate the cultures that make up Northeast Ohio at Cleveland World Festival, experience a fusion of Asian food and culture at Night Market, embrace the power of writing at Cleveland Inkubator and more.

Parks and other play spaces are designed for young people, yet youth are seldom asked for their input. A new initiative engages Cleveland kids in design and encourages them to consider careers in this area.

Urban, connected and on the move, the Campus District is poised to take off with more than $260 million pouring into this scant square mile of diverse territory.

In an effort to improve Cleveland Heights neighborhoods and create a new kind of social interaction, FutureHeights is now offering mini-grants of up to $1,000 for neighbors to get together for improvement projects.
 
“It’s a way to strengthen our neighborhoods,” says FutureHeights executive director Deanna Bremer Fisher. “The way we do that work is with our residents and strengthen their assets.”
 
The grass-roots program is loosely based on Cleveland’s Neighborhood Connections program, which offers grants of up to $5,000 for neighborhood enhancement projects and is partially responsible for the creation of popular events like Larchmere PorchFest.
 
Years ago, Bremer Fisher says neighborhood block clubs were prevalent in Cleveland Heights. While some of the groups still exist and thrive, such as in the Fairfax neighborhood where the block has as many as 10 events a year, many of the groups have dissolved.
 
“This will be an incentive to be able to do small projects – do little things from a social aspect or physical appearance,” says Bremer Fisher. “Whether it’s a project that works on some aspect of physical appearance or strengthens a social network, we’re really open to all ideas. Let’s talk about it.”
 
FutureHeights has $7,500 budgeted for the mini-grants. Groups must consist of at least three people in the same neighborhood, and they will be required to match 20 percent of the grant in either money or volunteer hours.
 
 The organization plans to offer the program again in the spring, depending on the interest. “We have no idea what kind of response we’ll get,” Bremer Fisher says. The application deadline is September 15. An informational meeting is scheduled for this Wednesday, July 29 at 7pm at the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Lee Road Library.

This weekend, take a historic walking tour of University Circle, support cancer research at the VeloSano Bike to Cure, compete for cash prizes at The American Institute of Architects sandcastle and volleyball competition, relax with Sunday yoga at Edgewater Beach and more.

 More than 3,500 professionals in marketing, communications, social media and public relations are expected to attend  2015 Content Marketing World – the largest event of its kind  -- on September 8-11 at the Cleveland Convention Center.

Over 100 speakers from companies including Kraft Foods, Avery Dennison and LinkedIn will cover the basics of content marketing to specific marketing strategies used by successful companies. The estimated economic impact of the conference is $3.6 million, according to Destination Cleveland. 
 
Unlike past years, this year's conference will cover the entrepreneurial market , says Content Marketing Institute founder and event coordinator Joe Pulizzi. The content marketing expert will host the Content Inc. Summit, geared specifically at entrepreneurs and small business owners on the last day of this year's conference on September 11. 
 
“There is a better way to launch a business today,” says Pulizzi. “Build an audience first. Once you build an audience, you can launch the business.”
 
By building an audience based on content, says Pulizzi, the entrepreneur can learn more about what the target market desires. “Anybody who wants to be their own boss in any industry, this is the way to go,” he says. “It takes patience, but it’s absolutely worth it.”
 
The Content Inc. Summit will feature a presentation by Pulizzi on “Six Steps to Content Marketing Domination,” as outlined in his book of the same title. Five additional speakers include Matthew Patrick, founder of Game Theory; John Lee Dumas, founder of EntrepreneurOnFire; and Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger Media.
 
Register online for the Content Inc. Summit, or register for the entire conference until September 4. 

Citizens Bank is giving the Economic Community Development Institute (ECDI) a $1 million line of credit to help finance loans to new and expanding businesses. ECDI provides loans between $500 and $350,000 to business owners and entrepreneurs trying to start or grow their businesses who might otherwise not be able to secure a loan.
 
ECDI's Cleveland office will receive the majority of the money, says Eric Diamond, executive vice president of ECDI Cleveland. “We will have a little more than 50 percent in this area because our loan volume is pretty high,” he says. “We expect to see a 30 percent increase in loan volume this year over last year.”
 
ECDI and Citizens have regularly worked together on securing loans for ECDI clients and have formed a good relationship, Diamond says . ECDI works with the SBA in addition to a variety of banks when funding a loan.
 
“Without us getting funding, we couldn’t fund other people,” says Diamond, adding that their average loan is about $25,000.
 
ECDI, which also has offices  offices in Columbus, Toledo and Akron, is the fourth largest SBA micro-lender in the United States and a U.S. Treasury-designated Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). Since the organization was started in Columbus in 2004, ECDI has assisted over 5,000 entrepreneurs, loaned over $25 million to over 1,200 businesses, and created and retained over 4,500 jobs across the state.  
 
The Cleveland ECDI office alone has funded approximately $5.3 million to more than 130 businesses since it started in 2012. “Citizens really understands CDFIs and they’ve spent a lot of time with us,” says Diamond. “They really know business and they are a class act to work with.”