Northeast Ohio will receive a $2,062,945 million federal grant for a collaborative program led by JumpStart, Lorain County Community College, MAGNET, and NorTech, which will stimulate job creation. This program, the Northeast Ohio Speed-To-Market Accelerator (STMA), is designed to accelerate the speed-to-market for near-production or pilot-production prototypes in the advanced energy and flexible electronics industry clusters in Northeast Ohio.

The STMA will employ a step-by-step process to help accelerate the commercialization of products, increase the global competitiveness of cluster companies, attract additional private capital to the region, and attract students, incumbent workers, and the unemployed to educational and training programs. JumpStart, MAGNET and NorTech will provide one-on-one assistance to help cluster members meet difficult challenges such as assessing key markets, engaging with commercialization partners and anchoring customers, increasing export revenue, and accessing capital. Lorain County Community College will lead an extensive network of Northeast Ohio universities in early assessment of cluster workforce needs to develop and implement education/training programs.

The Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge (the Jobs Accelerator) is designed to help regions achieve the demonstrated benefits of collaborative, cluster-based regional development. The Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration (EDA), the Department of Labor's Employment & Training Administration (ETA), and the Small Business Administration (SBA) are providing funding for the Jobs Accelerator. Twenty awards were granted, averaging $1.8 million per region and targeting several industries, including Health Care, Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, and Information Technology.