About a decade ago, wine expert Blake Kownacki met Claes Fornell, a retired University of Michigan business professor and expert on customer satisfaction. Their conversations blossomed into a friendship based on their mutual admiration for good wine, and they started to brainstorm how to put Detroit back on the map as a wine-centric, agri-entertainment center.

It was Jevona Watson’s dream to have a coffee shop in the Fitzgerald neighborhood in northwest Detroit, a place she calls home. A matching Motor City Match grant in 2016 helped take the first steps toward her dream. Watson began searching for support and resources as she was getting the shop ready to open. She landed on the University of Michigan’s Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project.

Detroit visitors now have four new urban tours to enjoy, thanks to help from a team of faculty and students at the University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI).

A Detroit Economic Growth Corp. plan to support entrepreneurs that are just getting started with short-term, low risk, pop-up opportunities got a boost from University of Michigan students who recently competed in the annual Social Impact Challenge.

Students and faculty at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design are working with a neighborhood alliance in Detroit to launch an incubator for creative enterprises and a community space for developing skills.

A new Detroit mini business, Cass Coasters, has grown from a U-M course that brings together students of business, engineering and art and design.