Information Technology : Featured Stories

A massive computer cluster housed in the Ohio Supercomputer Center operates at staggering speeds--and businesses large and small around the state are using the digital giant to break through technological barriers.

Explorys, which offers a secure software platform that allows healthcare systems to summarize, analyze and manage data, has moved into the former home of MOCA. The Cleveland-based company currently has more than 80 employees and is expected to climb to between 110 and 125 by next year.

Whether they are helping hospitals to manage access to private health information or creating a game that helps kids to zap away their health care fears, health care startups are growing in Cincinnati. Innov8forhealth, an accelerator now in its second year, is helping budding entrepreneurs to rapidly vet and commercialize their ideas.

If you're looking for evidence that venture capitalists are increasingly flocking to Ohio, look no further than the success of Athenian Venture Partners, whose 2003 AVP Ohio fund was recently ranked the top fund of its vintage by Preqin. That success is testament to the increasingly vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in Ohio, which is drawing venture capital.

The prevailing impression of regionalism that has been bandied about Northeast Ohio for the better part of a decade is all wrong, says a collaborative group of area nonprofits. While the consolidation of countless municipalities is useful, it is not intrinsically regionalism. True regionalism, they argue, is defined by economic activity -- not political boundaries.

While U.S. job growth overall may be stuck in neutral, IT professionals should be chomping at the bit. Experts say technology occupations will be at the leading edge of job growth for at least a decade. And three of the hottest cities for IT jobs right now are here in Ohio.

Mike Figliuolo is a former Army officer, McKinsey and Company consultant, Capital One Financial strategist, and a VP for Scotts Lawn Service. Today, he runs a practitioner-led leadership training firm, is an angel investor for tech startups, heads several web-based businesses and is a principal at a Dublin business accelerator. Oh, and he's writing a book. It's an unwieldy job description, but Figliuolo makes it simple: "I'm a parallel entrepreneur."

Wil Schroter was only 19 and a student at Ohio State University when he started his first company: Blue Diesel. Since then, he has blazed a trail of business creation that has resulted in more than half a dozen companies. We caught up with Schroter to ask him about entrepreneurship and his views on Ohio as a place to do business.