West Michigan Strategic Alliance gets Grant

[bwindi25]

15 Million that is!

http://www.mibiz.com/absolutenm/templates/...=8372&zoneid=25

It looks like WMSA got one of only 13 grants in the nation to restructure workforce strategies in the region's life sciences, alternative energy, manufacturing and health care sectors.

And it's REGIONAL (yeah Team West Michigan)!

This fits well with Heartwell's State of City speech last weekend about building our economy on sustainability.

[dbrok]

15 Million that is!

http://www.mibiz.com/absolutenm/templates/...=8372&zoneid=25

It looks like WMSA got one of only 13 grants in the nation to restructure workforce strategies in the region's life sciences, alternative energy, manufacturing and health care sectors.

And it's REGIONAL (yeah Team West Michigan)!

This fits well with Heartwell's State of City speech last weekend about building our economy on sustainability.

This could be a great thing. Reading through the article, though, it's a little vague about exactly how the $15m will create more and better employment. It does a great job explaining what the money is for, but not very specific on the execution of getting there. Exactly how will the money talked about create or enhance the above mentioned sectors?

[ModSquad]

15 Million that is!

http://www.mibiz.com/absolutenm/templates/...=8372&zoneid=25

It looks like WMSA got one of only 13 grants in the nation to restructure workforce strategies in the region's life sciences, alternative energy, manufacturing and health care sectors.

And it's REGIONAL (yeah Team West Michigan)!

This fits well with Heartwell's State of City speech last weekend about building our economy on sustainability.

Is CV or Fabes going to contract for anything from this grant?

[eyestosee]

15 Million that is!

http://www.mibiz.com/absolutenm/templates/...=8372&zoneid=25

It looks like WMSA got one of only 13 grants in the nation to restructure workforce strategies in the region's life sciences, alternative energy, manufacturing and health care sectors.

And it's REGIONAL (yeah Team West Michigan)!

This fits well with Heartwell's State of City speech last weekend about building our economy on sustainability.

This is a great thing. kudos

[bwindi25]

More info from the WMSA website:

The proposal to the WIRED program details the development of an integrated approach to workforce, economic development and education efforts in the West Michigan economy, with initiatives in four categories:

Market intelligence--initiatives designed to better understand the detailed structure of regional employment clusters and the emerging requirements for the innovation economy;

The Innovation Institute--bringing together all of the region's initiatives focused on building knowledge about innovation, innovation systems in regional companies, and a skill base to support innovation strategies;

Workforce system transformation--initiatives designed to restructure key elements of our workforce development and education system for emerging, existing and transitional workers;

Enterprise development--initiatives designed to stimulate entrepreneurship and new business creation.

Northrup credits existing regional efforts with the ability to craft a winning proposal. The Alliance partnered with GVSU, GRCC, the Michigan Works! Agencies, Best Michigan, The Right Place, Inc. and numerous other educational, business, and philanthropic institutions to create the proposal.

Maybe they should subcontract with Urban Planet:Grand Rapids the real "Innovation Institute"!

[dbrok]

Maybe they should subcontract with Urban Planet:Grand Rapids the real "Innovation Institute"!

Now that I'll agree with!

[snoogit]

We could call ourselves the Metropolitan Grand Rapids Institute for Urban Innovation.

[GRDadof3]

We could call ourselves the Metropolitan Grand Rapids Institute for Urban Innovation.

MGRIUI's?

[PBJ]

MGRIUI's?

We would definately need a better acronym..