Eureka Ranch, Right Place, launch national web portal to connect innovators, manufacturers

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

On April 20, Grand Rapids' Right Place Inc. and Cincinnati-based Eureka Ranch International launched an innovative online initiative with an eye to connecting innovators, investors and manufacturers nationwide.

The National Innovation Marketplace, developed by Eureka Ranch founder Doug Hall, takes its cues from Right Place's InnovationWorks IdeaPortal.

"The program takes the ideas we've been mining and putting on our IdeaPortal to give them national exposure," says Bill Small, Right Place innovation director. Small has spent the last two years developing two programs: InnovationWorks and Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center-West (MMTC-West), one of 59 national Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers.

"MMTC-West helps manufacturers be more efficient and helps them diversify their products," Small says. "We help them understand what it would mean to have their own proprietary product, to help them understand how having their own intellectual property would make them more attractive to other industries like medical devices and alternative energy."

Inventors input their product ideas on the National Innovation Marketplace where investors and manufacturers can connect with them. Likewise, manufacturers and investors can load their profiles indicating the type of products they're interested in funding and producing.

In West Michigan, users load their information to the IdeaPortal. If an idea isn't picked up by an investor or manufacturer in 100 days, InnovationWorks moves it to the National Innovation Marketplace web portal.

"It's important that a West Michigan idea stays in Michigan to try to keep the wealth here before the idea gets national exposure," Small says. "The idea never leaves the IdeaPortal web site, but once it's moved to the national portal it's available on both sites."

Source: Bill Small, Right Place Inc.

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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].