As summer camps went virtual across the U.S., we had a sneaky little thought. Who is to know if your kid is doing the remote summer camp… or you are? Some activities are fun for all ages. If you’re looking for summer activities at home for your kid, or… yourself, look no further than our own back yard. Ann Arbor in Southeast Michigan is home to dozens of world-class summer camp programs, and now you can access them from anywhere.
Ann Arbor’s maker community has designed a simplified protective face shield with powered filtered flow, a little brother of the high-end hazmat suit style PAPRs (Powered Air Purifying Respirators) you see in contagion movies. The so-called PFFR is not a fully contained helmet or suit, and has been redesigned to be more appropriate for the current pandemic. It costs under $100 instead of $2,000, and will soon be ready for production. The only problem? Many frontline workers are only allowed to use protective gear that fits into previously FDA-approved personal protective equipment (PPE). This concept likely falls between existing PPE categories, because it isn’t a full respirator mask and it isn’t a simple face shield but somewhere in between. The journey to getting FDA emergency use authorization has been a long one, even in times when the agency has sped up its evaluation process drastically to get more PPE onto the front lines.
We at Cronicle would like to expect social justice and equality to be the norm. Times like these highlight how far we as a society still have to go, including in the tech industry where minority founders and talent are regularly underfunded or mistreated. Also in Southeast Michigan, which remains one of the most segregated metro areas in the United States. While Cronicle already highlights organizations that promote equal opportunity and fair treatment for under-represented people groups, we want you to know at this juncture in our history as a startup that we stand with all of you working toward equal opportunities for everyone regardless of race or gender expression, for fair treatment in the world at every level, and will do our best to highlight more opportunities for tech to support people in our community and in the world at large whose diverse perspectives and talents enrich the fabric of our collective future.
In a short month, everything from grocery delivery to contactless delivery robots are becoming commonplace as the American workforce adjusts to work from home. You can still go out of the house for essentials even during stay-at-home orders in most cases, but what if you’re looking to have contactless delivery of as many supplies as possible? We put together a list of top newer delivery services you may not know are now in your area. We focused this list on Southeast Michigan where we have tested the services, but many of these services are national or quickly expanding in your area, too. Most offer a zip code check to find out if you are in the delivery zone.
How honest can we expect workers to be about symptoms of COVID-19 as they return to work they need for economic security and healthcare? Are employers or the government assuring worker job security when workers fall ill so that they can afford to miss work? These are some of the questions we’ve been mulling as Michigan Governor Whitmer announced her 6-phase plan for safely reopening the Michigan economy. States around the U.S. are reopening despite not reaching recommended milestones, and tensions are running high between people concerned about health versus disastrous employment numbers, including 48% of Detroiters losing their job in recent months.
Companies around the world are navigating how to reopen after shutdown. In many cases, it simply isn’t feasible for workers to return to cramped working conditions even with masks and hand sanitizer or spray shields, so many companies are extending work from home indefinitely. But tech has largely been operating on the idea that innovation happens in close quarters when founders swim in a soup of collaborative brainstorming–especially startups that operate out of coworking spaces. What happens to the coworking spaces and the smaller tech startups that operate out of these shared spaces after reopening?
Tech companies are leading the charge to hire work from home jobs after the poorly contained coronavirus outbreak has left businesses scrambling to address workplace safety. While some workplaces will continue to allow work from home during shutdown and then return workers to offices equipped with masks, hand sanitizer, gloves, and widely spaced desks with spray shields, others are seeing the issue of protecting workers as a more longterm challenge and taking advantage of the opportunities that work from home provides.
Michigan’s business analysis firm EntryPoint has just released the Washtenaw County COVID-19 Business Impact Report to help business owners and investors examine the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on local business and investment. For startups and tech businesses looking at the business landscape, here’s what you’ll learn:
Research labs have been shut down. Small businesses are searching for funding. But it’s not all bad news in the emerging tech hubs of the Midwest. Especially in hard-hit Michigan, the structure is in place to allow some startups to do quite well during challenging times. We went in to a few interviews of Midwest tech companies and startup coaches thinking they would help us pay forward resources to startup founders to get through these hard times. In addition to resources, they had some good news.
What happens when you’ve repaid your loans for years only to find out the loan forgiveness won’t kick in because you didn’t fill out the right paperwork? What if you can’t repay loans right now because you lost a job due to the coronavirus recession? Ann Arbor’s LoanSense, a brand-new startup founded by Catalina Kaiyoorawongs and co-founder Ivan Herndon formerly of StockX, uses technology to find the right program for loan forgiveness or repayment.
