Strong Local Economy : Featured Stories

Incubator or community kitchens have been gaining momentum in the Twin Cities, bringing together food entrepreneurs, ingredients, and innovation.

From beer sampling to wearable tech to Pecha Kucha, Club Entrepreneur is cultivating new business relationships and startups by supporting Twin Cities' innovators with actionable content and connections.

How groups at the University of Minnesota are using design thinking as the creative approach to explore new ways of working and collaborating.

How key non-profits have forged partnerships with healthcare institutions along the Green Line to generate corridors of opportunity for job seekers, residents, and communities.

Smart cities like Saint Paul are renovating their train stations (like the multi-modal hub Union Depot) into neighborhood and urban amenities.

Few organizations have done more to connect locally minded craft-beer enthusiasts with the startups that drive Minnesota’s resurgent brewing industry than the Beer Dabbler, which holds its Beer Dabbler Winter Carnival on January 25.

The Line buzzed in 2013 with articles—many of them in the top 10 most-read of the year—on topics starting with a “b”: beer and architect-designed breweries, beekeeping and bike entrepreneurs among them.

The Line asked Alexis Ohanian, who is speaking at the Walker Art Center and is best known as the cofounder of the social news site reddit, about how to create community on the Internet and his advice for startups.

The report, “Financing Worker Cooperative Start-Ups in Minnesota,” produced in a Master’s of Public Affairs course at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School, focuses on the unique funding challenges of cooperative startups and social enterprises.

The burgeoning winter-biking scene wouldn’t be possible without the bike designers, entrepreneurs, co-ops, fests, expos, zines, and coffee shops that give the community its innovative edge and vitality.

The Northeast Investment Cooperative is a for-profit group that enables people to collectively buy, renovate, and manage commercial and residential property. NEIC's first project is reinvigorating Central Avenue with tenants that focus on bikes, bread, and beer.

Scott Ervin has opened the first micro-distillery in Minneapolis, Norseman Distillery.

Heather and John McDougall, who are siblings, have designed the bamboo Bogobrush, a "buy one, give one" product that provides toothbrushes to people in need.