Virtual Road Trip Shows Strength of Detroit & Ann Arbor Tech Hubs

This week, the Purpose Jobs crew made our first stops on our virtual road trip, landing in Ann Arbor and Detroit.

Cities in the Midwest, like Detroit and Ann Arbor, are taking off as emerging tech hubs. They're proving themselves to be amazing places to work, live, find fulfilling careers and enjoy life. So we partnered with our friends at Detroit Venture Partners to showcase all things living, working & tech in the Detroit and Ann Arbor communities. After the panels, we hosted a virtual startup and tech career fair to help job seekers easily access top startup jobs in Detroit and Ann Arbor.

It was so great to virtually see new and old friends joining the event, and we're still geeking out over all the amazing insights our panelists shared at the discussions. 

“The Detroit community is successful, resilient, and so diverse," Paul Riser, Managing Director at TechTown, said during the virtual panel on living and working in Detroit and Ann Arbor. 

Monica Wheat, Managing Director at Techstars Equitech and co-founder of Venture Catalysts, highlighted the growth of the Detroit startup community. Over the past couple years, Detroit has harnessed its own strengths as a tech community to find real success. 

"In the beginning we made the same mistakes that a lot of other cities did. We tried to take Silicon Valley culture and supplant it here, and that's why some of those initial efforts didn't work. They didn't take advantage of our strengths and the things that were good for us. . . . We didn't have a mold to fit so we decided to support our strengths in our industries and the way we connect as people," Monica said. 

Ann Arbor SPARK's Senior Vice President & Chief of Staff, Phil Santer, also highlighted the rapid growth of Ann Arbor's tech community, and the power of the two cities working together.

"This is a really collaborative region that's working together in different ways than we've ever seen before," Phil said. 

In the panel on remote working, boomerangs Lindsey Kilbride, Mykolas Rambus and Peter Baker shared some of the reasons why they returned to the area to live and start their own businesses or join top startups in Michigan. 

“The willingness to collaborate here was astounding," Peter said. 

For those interested in top startup jobs in Ann Arbor and Detroit, we hosted a virtual behind the scenes panel with people from Workit Health, Blumira, Autobooks and Trustpage. 

“One thing I really appreciate about Blumira is our focus on mental health within the cybersecurity industry. We have things we promote internally to focus on mental health for our people," said Courtney Papcun, Talent Acquisition at Blumira. 

If you missed the event, you can catch the complete recording here 👇

Couldn't make it to the virtual career fair? Stay tuned for our next event, and in the meantime, explore hundreds of startup and tech jobs, and apply privately with one quick, free and easy profile.