JPMorgan Chase & Co. Awards $30M to Cluster Initiatives

JPMorgan Chase & Co. launched Small Business Forward℠ — a five-year, $30 million grant program to help industry cluster initiatives in cities across the country.  Through Small Business Forward, JPMorgan Chase will fund nonprofit organizations that work with small businesses concentrated in a single industry sector. In addition to supporting strategic planning and research, grants will help cluster organizations provide participating small businesses with access to networking opportunities; partnerships with colleges and universities; workforce and management training efforts; supplier networks; and, export promotion initiatives. Awardees include:

• Manufacturing Renaissance’s Austin Manufacturing Innovation Park is developing a facility for advanced manufacturing companies on Chicago's West Side.
• Eastern Market's new community kitchen gives small business owners access to professional kitchens and connections and Bizdom for strengthening the environment for e-commerce businesses in Detroit.
• The University of Missouri-Kansas City's Free Enterprise Center will provide growing businesses access to high-tech equipment including 3D printing to help them develop new products.
• LA Cleantech has brought together business, government, and academia in Los Angeles to grow the city's cleantech sector and is now developing satellites throughout California and internationally.
• The Milwaukee Water Council connects freshwater research, innovation, education, and business development to make Milwaukee a hub of water technology.
• The New Jersey Innovation Institute applies the intellectual and technological resources of the New Jersey Institute of Technology to challenges identified by industry partners in Newark.
• The New Orleans BioInnovation Center is a health sciences incubator that supports promising, high growth companies.
• QB3 is a lead partner of BioSF, a collaboration between academia and government to develop a biotech industry cluster in San Francisco.
• The Washington Interactive Network is growing interactive media and technology companies that are generating high-quality jobs across Puget Sound.
• BioSTL is building the regional infrastructure in the bioscience sectors of health and healthcare IT in St. Louis.

Read the press release…

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Sponsors SSTI Excellence in TBED Awards Ceremony
We are thrilled to announce that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will be the sponsor for the SSTI Excellence in TBED Awards Ceremony at SSTI’s 2014 Annual Conference in Chicago (September 14-16). Held on Monday, September 15, this special ceremony recognizes outstanding tech-based economic development initiatives that greatly impact state and regional economies that are selected through a national competition showcasing effective and innovative approaches to building tech-based economies. Learn more about the conference at: http://ssticonference.org/. For more information about the awards program visit: http://www.sstiawards.org/.