What’s happening in Midwest innovation? Subscribe to This Week in Milwaukee Rising

There are lessons to be learned across innovation hubs near and far. How is an East Coast center tackling the challenge of diversifying its tech talent pipeline? How is a post-industrial Rust Belt city addressing the environmental effects of its most promising technical industry? What can be applied elsewhere from a Southwest hub’s anti-poverty approach to workforce development?

This fall, adding to its reporting roster of Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Delaware and Pittsburgh, Technical.ly is launching a newsletter-first series focusing on lessons from a rising star in Midwest innovation: Milwaukee. The six-month pilot campaign, called This Week in Milwaukee Rising, will highlight community voices, introducing subscribers to those who are most shaping the Wisconsin city’s future.

Why Milwaukee? In short, it is a fast-changing city with considerable challenges and impressive opportunities. It’s a place known for breweries and the Bucks, yes, but also its diversity (even as it grapples with lingering segregation) and a growing entrepreneurship scene. We at Technical.ly want to be a part of those growth stories. More generally, we have spent a decade following tech industry growth and change on the East Coast. Though we’ve done short-term reporting series in cities across the country, it wasn’t until our launch in Pittsburgh this year that we began more closely following the efforts in the U.S. Midwest to shape its economic future. Milwaukee is just the kind of city for us to learn more, and to help connect that community and those we already know well.

Every Wednesday, you can expect a short Q&A introducing you to a social entrepreneur, civic technologist, creative innovator or the like, plus curated links and job listings that relate to a more just, equitable and dynamic Milwaukee economy.

This series aims to be of, by, with and for a community of those shaping Milwaukee’s economic future. It will be published by Technical.ly, a community of technology and creative professionals formed by journalism and storytelling on local innovation economies, and is underwritten by American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin.

Each newsletter will include contact information for the person profiled so readers can get in touch to get involved in their work, or learn more, as well as prompts to spark responses from readers and shape future editions of the series. Our goal is that at the end of this project, we will have grown a diverse community of creative, technology and entrepreneurial professionals who are working to make Milwaukee a more economically dynamic and accessible place — and share lessons for those building elsewhere.

To be among the first to receive This Week in Milwaukee Rising and track the people shaping Midwest innovation, subscribe here:

This Week in Milwaukee Rising is underwritten by American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact.