Dearborn, U.S.A – For more than a century Ford Motor Company has been a leading automotive industry innovator, launching breakthroughs in areas as diverse as manufacturing, safety, propulsion systems and vehicle design. On 31 May 2012 Ford is reaching beyond its boundaries to encourage entrepreneurship and the sharing of ideas to facilitate innovation that can help not only the company, but more importantly, the community at large to create a better world.

“There was a time not so long ago in this business when ideas that were ‘not invented here’ got easily dismissed,” says William Coughlin, CEO, Ford Global Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Motor Company that manages the company’s intellectual property portfolio. “The competitive pressures in the auto industry today are greater than ever, with demands for improving quality, safety, technology and of course fuel efficiency, so we are both encouraging and looking for new ideas wherever we can find them.”

Ford is launching several major initiatives to support entrepreneurship and surface technological innovation in southeast Michigan. In addition to the recent improvement to the Patent Incentive Program that provides Ford employee inventors with a three-month free membership to TechShop Detroit, Ford is also looking for new ideas from outside.

“TechShop is a place where entrepreneurs and other makers have access to over one million dollars of tools, software and high-end equipment that allow them to rapidly and inexpensively prototype,” said Mark Hatch, CEO of TechShop. “Innovation happens when you add community and crowdsourcing into the mix – which is exactly what the Motor City Innovation Exchange will do for our members, the automotive industry and anyone in the greater Detroit area who has an idea they want to turn into a reality.”

Motor City Innovation Exchange, AutoHarvest and TechTown

Creators with ideas that have been fleshed out need to put them into action and that’s where the Motor City Innovation Exchange comes into play.

“Bringing TechShop to Detroit was the critical first step in the creation of the Innovation Exchange,” says Coughlin. “It will be an open meeting place that will enable inventors to showcase what they create in TechShop and then negotiate, network and even sell their prototyped solutions to players in the automotive industry, from manufacturers and suppliers to research institutions and startups.”

The Innovation Exchange is also a physical extension of Detroit-based AutoHarvest Foundation, a nonprofit organization set up by several respected automotive executives to facilitate connections between the industry and Metro Detroit’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Ford Global Technologies, along with other automakers, suppliers, universities and research centers actively support AutoHarvest. The goal is to build a vibrant marketplace for licensing technological innovation across and beyond the auto industry.

Until now, there has been a major disconnect between having a great idea and being able to sell or license it to companies that can actually put it to use. For those not already in the industry, making the right connections to present a new concept or product has been a daunting task. AutoHarvest and Innovation Exchange hope to provide a platform for commercializing the intellectual property created by everyday inventors, industry insiders, universities and research labs.

TechTown, the Wayne State University business incubator, will hold regular “office hours” sessions at Innovation Exchange to provide informal business support to TechShop members and other innovators. Exchange participants will be able to take advantage of free or low-cost workshops on a variety of relevant topics presented by TechTown instructors.

“Innovation Exchange is all about helping to spread the word about the innovation happening both inside and outside of TechShop, and giving the creators the foundational resources they need to understand how to sell and commercialize their idea and connect with the right players while respecting their intellectual property,” says Coughlin.

Jump Start Program

TechShop members with big ideas for a startup and a need for affordable working space can participate in a new Jump Start Program that offers discounted rental rates in Ford Land buildings in the Allen Park and Dearborn area.

Because of the diversity of projects being developed at TechShop, Ford Land will be flexible in providing suitable space that fits the specific needs of participants. The space, including locations adjacent to TechShop Detroit, can be used by individuals or small businesses for a variety of purposes including office, garage, lab and assembly use. Interested TechShop members can access information at http://fordland.com.

“Supporting innovation and entrepreneurialism benefits the entire region,” said Donna Inch, chairman and CEO, Ford Land. “By lowering startup costs, we will enable more businesses to get off the ground and have a better chance of being successful.”

“Like every industry, the automobile business was built and thrived on innovation,” said Coughlin. “As personal transportation is reinvented in the 21st century, the challenges facing the industry are greater than ever and fresh ideas are essential to success.”

“Ford is pleased to be leading the way through its connections with TechShop, AutoHarvest Foundation and TechTown,” he added.

Image Courtesy of  Darren Brode / Shutterstock.com

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The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability (CTBA) and the Social IMPACT Research Center released a new analysis that highlights how large cuts to human services, which provide supports for some of the most vulnerable people in the state, will send shockwaves through the state’s economy.

The new research, entitled Ramifications of State Budget Cuts to Human Services: Increases Job Loss, Decreases economic Activity, Harms Vulnerable Populations, shows these cuts could result in nearly 4,000 lost jobs and a $458.5 million loss to Illinois’s economy.

While budget discussions are just beginning, the three year budget projection issued by the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget as part of the new Budgeting for Results process indicates that the human services budget area will receive a significant cut of $350 million dollars from Financial Year2012 to Financial Year 2013.

Faced with cuts of this magnitude, human services providers will reduce hours, lay off staff, close facilities, or do all of these things. Not only does this impact thousands of Illinoisans who rely on these programs, but the cuts will have a direct economic consequence on the state.

Since most human services are delivered by private, nonprofit businesses, the vast majority of the economic effects will land on the private sector. When organizations providing human services must cut programs and reduce services, these actions ripple through the economy causing job loss in communities and sectors all across Illinois.

More broadly, cuts to human services will translate directly into decreased economic activity statewide, and the report shows that could result in a loss of $458.5 million to the economy. The actual negative economic impact of a cut to the human services budget exceeds the actual size of the cut since spending on human services generates $1.31 of economic activity for every $1 spent. In other words, state funding to human services functions as an economic engine and removing it from the economic chain has serious consequences:

“By cutting human services funding further in the next budget Illinois is lengthening the time it will take to fully recover from the Great Recession,” said Yerik Kaslow, Director of Education and Social Policy Analysis at the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability and co-author of the report.

“Since human services are often the most cost-effective approaches to treating and solving social problems, with these cuts we are allowing social problems to become more entrenched and more difficult to address, which sets the stage for more costs to all Illinois taxpayers.”

This is not simply a point-in-time issue—cuts to human services accumulate: the $1.64 billion dollar cumulative underfunding of human services since 2002 likely led to the loss of over 18,000 private sector jobs in Illinois over that same period. As of October 2011, the State had a backlog of bills to human service providers totaling nearly $459 million, which has the effect of withholding over $600 million from the Illinois economy.

Illinois is in the midst of recovering from the worst recession in two generations. Job growth and increased economic activity are of paramount concern to voters and lawmakers alike. Ramifications of State Budget Cuts to Human Services provides evidence that public spending on human services serves as an economic stimulus for jobs and private spending in the broader Illinois economy.

Adequate public spending also has the longer-range benefits of avoiding future social problems and associated costs. In light of this, cuts to human services are short-sighted and detrimental to Illinois’s economy.

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The prodigious rise in the UK’s unemployment rate has recently led the government to intervene to make people either earn or learn. Britain’s government has set aside £1 billion to help the record number of unemployed nationals. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg recently said that youth “contract funds” will help create internships and apprenticeships in the country.

A youth contract program, starting in April 2012, will provide 4.1m work places over three years for young people, including wage subsidies of 160,000 pounds for jobs and 250,000 pounds for work experience placements. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s economic statement mentioned that there will be payments to employers to encourage 20,000 apprenticeships under the program.

Clegg said that unemployment is economic waste and a slow-burning social disaster. The Office of National Statistics said unemployment among youth aged 16-24 has flared up in an unusual fashion in recent years, reaching 1.02 million in the third quarter from 67,000, the highest level since recorded in 1992. Further the office said the unemployment rate in this category is 21.9 percent and has continued to be so from last year.

Unemployment in the UK is on the rise according to Office of the National Statistics which presented that there were total of 2.62 million are left unemployed in the second quarter, highest since 1994, and this has brought the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent in the UK, which has been a jolt to UK’s economic recovery.

According to Chris Williamson, Chief Economist at Markit, “Labour market data will raise concerns that the UK Economic recovery is fading away.” Three factors have played havoc in the UK: rise in unemployment, weak earnings, and ultimately, inflation. Due to the rise in unemployment, uncertainty in the job market and inflation, situations have been created where it looks like the incomes of the households have been squeezed.

Unemployment is the key element that provokes weakness in the economy and if inflation is accompanied for a considerable time, then this might potentially lead to stagflation. And perhaps there are chances of economic doddering in the short-term because of Euro Zone Crisis but this is not exhaustive.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED), Europe is in recession and Britain will follow in 2012. OCED called on the Government to pump up resources to mitigate the impact of raising unemployment. The Government needs to consider easing the programme of fiscal spending cuts so as to revitalize and strengthen economy by the way of increasing public spending.

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