Innovation: What you can learn from Kalamazoo
Fast Company recently highlighted Southwest Michigan First, an economic development group out of Kalamazoo Michigan that was included in this year’s Fast 50 lineup.
They are acknowledged in this article for their innovative response to Pfizer closing down their local R & D branch in 2003. Fearing scientists would leave the area without job opportunities, they managed to raise $50 million (an impressive amount for a town of its size) to start a for-profit venture fund to support life-science startups. Two weeks after the announced layoffs, the group opened a business incubator that within three months was home to 15 new life-science companies. Four of them are graduating from the incubator this year and moving into bigger offices. One has already made breakthroughs in cancer research.
