TROY ? On Valentine’s Day, the Entrepreneurial Initiative of Southeast Michigan forum will feature presentations by emerging companies selected by a panel of the group’s business leaders and investors, along with a keynote speech delivered by Randal Charlton, the Interim Director of Wayne State University’s Tech Town.

In January 2007, Charlton was named as Entrepreneur in Residence and Special Assistant to the President for Economic Development. In this role he will provide ongoing leadership to stimulate local economic development and growth of small high-tech businesses and work closely with President Reid to raise the profile of WSU?s efforts and programs in local, regional and state economic development and focus on nurturing start-up companies borne out of Wayne State?s research and technology breakthroughs.

Presenting Companies:

Gene Vivo

GeneVivo creates transgenic ? or genetically modified ? animals for biomedical research. The transgenics market is $750 million and growing at 12% – 13% per year. GeneVivo?s proprietary method enables the company to expand the market by genetically modifying strains of mice (analogous to breeds of dogs) that were not amenable to transgenesis by previous methods, opening up a much-needed new chest of tools to the research community. Sean Ainsworth, CEO, will speak.

Procuit

Procuit, a company dedicated to transforming how the world learns, has announced the creation of Studytag.com. StudyTag.com is an online learning center where anyone can take existing free courses and easily create and share new ones. Procuit’s knowledge transfer tools uniquely support business people or students in truly mastering, retaining, and recalling knowledge. Tom Meloche, CEO and President will be presenting.

Ur Turn.com

UrTurn.com is a revolutionary online social operating system that combines the best features of today’s leading networks with a unique, patent-pending point system that allows users to share in the site’s revenue. Within the urTurn.com system, ?EveryClick Counts??; users, developers and network creators earn points for contributing to the site?s content, functionality and growth. Monthly point totals are converted to revenue and distributed to users. By encouraging and rewarding participation, urTurn.com aims to build a dynamic and vibrant online platform where users are empowered to continually improve the site’s features and functionality. Mark Sendo, Founder & CEO and Jonathan Brown, Founder and CTO will be speaking.

Date:

February 14

Time:

8:00 a.m. Registration

8:30 – 10:00 a.m. Program

Cost:

There is no cost to attend.

Location:

Automation Alley Headquarters,

2675 Bellingham,

Troy

For more information, click on AutomationAlley.Com

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