Ann Arbor’s Voxel51, which offers advanced machine learning tools to analyze video, has just released a tool that looks at the social impact of physical distancing from the COVID-19 epidemic. They’re calling it PDI, or Physical Distancing Index. The data can be used in a number of ways to look at the results of social distancing orders and correlated with virus spread trends.
The Whitmer Administration has announced that businesses across Michigan are now able to apply for $349 billion in Paycheck Protection Program forgivable loans through the U.S. Small Business Administration. Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist II was joined by former Lt. Governor, and current president of the Small Business Association of Michigan (SBAM) Brian Calley and Bob Doyle, president and CEO of the Michigan Association of CPAs, in launching a new statewide website, MIpaycheckprotection.com, to provide businesses with key resources to assist with the PPP application and loan process and ensure the greatest amount of federal funding is able to be used by small businesses for economic relief efforts throughout the state.
“A lot of people want to help manufacture PPE protective gear but don’t know how to get started,” says Jeff Trevorrow, CEO of Columbus Advanced Manufacturing Systems in Ohio. CAMS is partnering with its customer, fitness equipment manufacturer Rogue Fitness, in rapid production of Personal Protective Equipment that is reusable for front-line responders in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. “Rogue Fitness’s CEO saw this need coming several weeks ago and ordered 5 extra 3D printers,” Trevorrow tells us, “which is about $360,000 of equipment plus hard tooling to make molds, and they’re giving [the gear] away for free. They organized this, and we jumped in.”
LANSING, Mich. (Mar. 26, 2020) – Yesterday, the Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP) successfully secured $600,000 from the MEDC’s Small Business Relief Program to issue 60 $10,000 grants to small businesses across Clinton, Eaton and Ingham counties that are suffering financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Michigan’s small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 virus can now apply for grants and loans through the Michigan Small Business Relief Program. The program will provide up to $20 million in grants and loans to provide economic assistance to Michigan’s small businesses that have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 virus, and in turn help support workers and their families facing economic uncertainty during the outbreak. Information on how to apply, as well as eligibility criteria, is available at www.michiganbusiness.org/covid19.
Our new online tech events page is live and being updated on a rolling basis as many tech communities in Ann Arbor-Detroit and the greater Great Lakes region move online in the coming weeks. Many events have been cancelled temporarily, but this is a great opportunity to attend events that were previously limited to local audiences now open to anyone online. Many are free. We hope you are staying safe and still able to work through these difficult times. Be well.
Small businesses in Washtenaw County have another option to help bridge the coronavirus crisis: Ann Arbor SPARK has just announced the new Washtenaw Small Business Resiliency Fund. We spoke with SPARK Chief of Staff Phil Santer to get the details on this new financing option to help struggling businesses in the Ann Arbor area and surrounding regions.
Cronicle’s MICHIGAN LIFE SCIENCES & TECH BUSINESS COVID-19 COLLABORATION PAGE is now live and being added to daily. Michigan has a number of manufacturers, tech businesses, and hospital systems working together to create everything from medical supplies to vaccines to remote work and education options right now for COVID-19 response. Cronicle Press has put together a beginning list of companies posting requests or offering solutions to the coronavirus outbreak from business to educational tech to medical supplies and life science research. We will add to this list continually, but wanted to let you know it’s already up and running, from local manufacturers able to prototype ventilators and other hospital supplies to tech companies helping professionals and students switch to remote work options.
In collaboration with Arbor Biosciences and a number of professionals in the IT and biomedical field in Ann Arbor and the Great Lakes region, we will be helping organize and will be publishing some form of collaborative discussion or networking resources on COVID-19 response from the Ann Arbor-Detroit and greater Great Lakes business and tech communities and ways the tech and health sciences communities can network to find medical and business solutions to the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on our communities.
The World Health Organization has published information for COVID-19 researchers looking at antibodies in previously infected individuals to help gain a picture of community spread, the possibility of catching the novel virus twice, and to track other characteristics of the disease. If you or a company or research team you know is working on COVID-19 research, the following information may be useful as it is linked to more resources and related guidelines. Also, if you are not already following this page, this is where WHO publishes guidelines for a number of rapidly evolving aggregated studies and guidelines for COVID-19 response. We hope it is helpful to you.
