Organization

EG plans virtual incubator

Saturday, November 01, 2008
By Chris Gautz
cgautz@citpat.com—768-4926

As Jackson’s business incubator prepares to close, officials at The Enterprise Group are well into the planning for a virtual incubator that will be incorporated into the county’s new SmartZone.

After concerns about the aging state of the building and its lack of profitability, officials at the EG, the county’s economic-development agency, decided to close the building at 414 N. Jackson St. by the end of the year.

The proposed virtual incubator will allow those interested in starting a business and their employees to take online courses and earn a business degree. Upon graduation, they will be assigned local mentors for two years to guide them through the early years of their business.

“It isn’t going to be anything like the incubator now,’’ said Tom Grace, who has been heading a committee examining the issue for the EG.

Grace said the new program will be more modernized and computer-based.

“We’re going to have to start changing the face and the way of Jackson,’’ Grace said. “We can’t rely on automotive anymore.’’

While anyone interested in starting a business has the ability to take part, they will be focusing the businesses into several of the top industries, including high-tech manufacturing electronics and life sciences.

“We’re establishing clusters of technology that we will need in the future that we can build incubators around,’’ Grace said.

Rather than have one building to use as an incubator like the EG has now, companies already in the county in a particular cluster may open up a portion of unused space in their facilities to a startup business in their field.

In some cases the startup might be a supplier of the existing county business, Grace said.

Grace said the new incubator is about two years away from becoming a reality. He said it will take about a year for Jackson County’s three higher-education institutions, Baker College, Jackson Community College and Spring Arbor University, to put together this virtual classroom plan.

They will also need to build a physical space to house the computer network and have a place for the professors to broadcast lessons.

According to the SmartZone application filed with the state in June, it could be housed in a future expansion project at Baker College, which resides in the SmartZone.

It will be helpful to the students because they can focus on their business, while taking all of their classes online, Grace said. The class work will involve problems about their own businesses, not hypothetical scenarios, he said. If the assignment is on how to create a payroll system, the students will use their own payroll information.

Ron Griffith, Spring Arbor University’s executive director of external relations, said the three institutions are working on ways to adapt to the changing needs of those looking to start a business.

“We want to be the facilitators for innovation and entrepreneurs in Jackson,’’ Griffith said. “That way a person with an idea doesn’t get shuffled around. We want it to be done as collaboratively as possible.’’