Issue Media Group, which owns Model D, is partnering with New Michigan Media to help tell the growing number of success stories of businesses started by minorities and immigrants in Metro Detroit.
The new partnership, funded by the
New Economy Initiative, will utilize content created by five of the largest ethnic-based publications in Michigan: The Arab American News, The Jewish News, The Michigan Korean Weekly, The Latino Press, and The Michigan Chronicle. That entrepreneurial content will be published through Issue Media Group's
SEMichiganStartup.com, telling the stories of hard work and economic contributions of the large number of ethnic, minority and immigrant entrepreneurs in the region.
"The project will remake the narrative of Detroit," says
Hayg Oshagan, president of New Michigan Media and a professor of communications for
Wayne State University. "There is the general sense of the city in the region that is all doom and gloom. That's not true."
Immigrant entrepreneurs have traditionally played a key roll in the entrepreneurial ecosystems for both Michigan and the U.S. Ventures funded by the foreign-born across the country have created 450,000 jobs and represented a market capitalization of about $500 billion. Metro Detroit's immigrant community is the third most productive in the U.S.
Foreign-born residents are also three times as likely to start a business and four times as likely to file an international patent and six times as likely to start a high-tech firm between 1995 and 2005. Immigrant entrepreneurs have also created more than $1.5 billion in annual business income in Michigan.
Source: Hayg Oshagan, president of New Michigan Media
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at
SEMichiganStartup.com.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.