As part of the Global Auto Mobility Our Smart Future Series, we talked with Jacob Evan Smith, Director of Mobility & Health Innovation at TechTown Detroit about TechTown’s approach to growing businesses in the unique Detroit and Michigan region. The following is an excerpt:
My name is Jacob Evan Smith. I’m the director of Mobility and health innovation at Tech town. I work with startup founders to help them connect to the right partners and resources. In my role, I run a program called MAIN, the Mobility Accelerator Innovation Network, which is essentially a regional collaboration that is looking to build up the local mobility ecosystem.
Main is a partnership between eight different organizations, from academia to accelerator programs and entrepreneurial support organizations — all working together to ensure that no matter what stage you’re at as a mobility founder, we can help you connect to the help you get the support that you need.
This fits into the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem because mobility is a key piece of the puzzle as Michigan looks to define how it’s going to approach economic development. Main is helping to empower that shift and make sure that we’re primed to build the strongest mobility companies in the world right here: in Detroit and and in Michigan.
There are a number of trends in the local mobility ecosystem that we’re particularly excited about right now. For example, we have an opportunity to define mobility more broadly than just automotive. But defining mobility more broadly, as efficiently moving people, goods and information by land, air or sea, we take better advantage of our regional strengths, like manufacturing prowess and the wealth of engineering talent coming out of our universities.
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