For some reason, I always naturally wake up seconds before my actual alarm goes off at 8:50. As I panic to turn off my alarm, Henry inevitably stirs in his deep slumber. When Keiley and I meet in the downstairs lobby for our three-mile bike ride, this is usually the point where I remember that I forgot to pack a lunch but am too lazy to go back upstairs and fetch it. With me leading the two of us on our trek to Build Institute in the mornings, it always dawns on me how peaceful Detroit is in the mornings.

As soon as we get into the office at around 10:00, Keiley and I both set up shop in the yellow room to check the news and social media --Keiley will randomly show me Facebook videos of adorable babies and kittens, which I appreciate very much. After muscling through a productive two-hour binge working session, we leave at exactly 12:30 for lunch. Keiley and I walk two blocks down Bagley Avenue to Honey Bee's grocery store where I buy my amazingly cheap yet delicious meal.

Coming back to the office after lunch, we usually have a meeting with one of our amazing co-workers to discuss anything from ideas for our economic impact report to what band they play in-shoutout to Wayne for being in 3 bands at once! An afternoon at Build Institute would not be complete without Keiley getting her black coffee with a smidgen of honey. Rounding out our day would include me working on a guilty sugar-high after having devoured at least 5 or 6 Hershey kisses while listening to Maroon 5's Songs About Jane album.

Work-wise, Keiley and I have mainly been consumed with trying to gather the appropriate data and format for our final deliverable. Additionally, we are also assembling a directory of Build grads that perhaps might make its way into the 5-year anniversary Build Institute book.  
At around 5:15, as our co-workers begin to trickle out of the office, we set off on our bikes back to University Towers. The only difference between  journeying to and from Build is the heat and the bustling crowds.       

From 5:45 to almost 7:00, Raymond and I workout in a 3-day cycle (back and bicep, chest and tricep, shoulders and core). And yes, we usually skip leg-day. Coming back to University Towers is super relaxing and mostly consists of either watching Netflix, random Youtube videos, or going to Treat Dreams. At around 12:30, I'm completely exhausted and need my sleep. 

8:40 – My alarm goes off, but I’ve already been awake for the past 10 minutes. For some reason here in Detroit, I wake up naturally whenever it gets too bright outside. It’s a good feeling, though, waking up on your own after a good night’s sleep.

9:20 – I finish showering and getting ready. I’m in a rush to leave because me and Raymond have agreed to meet up at 9:20 because we have to walk to TechTown and get there in time to set up for our 10am. The original plan was just to drink coffee at TechTown for breakfast, but Caroline stops me as I leave and asks me if I want two granola bars. I gratefully accept them and thank her profusely.

9:25-9:45 – Raymond and I make the familiar walk to TechTown along Cass Avenue. This walk usually takes 30 minutes because we love to talk/chat/gossip during these walks, but today we’re in more of a rush because we want to get to TechTown early to set up for our important marketing strategy presentation at 10 to TechTown’s . I cross a couple of streets when there’s a red light, and Raymond jokes that I have “no chill” because I’m a New Yorker, whereas he’s a “chill” Californian. I joke that my pace is a million times faster than his (I promise you, it’s true).

9:45 – We arrive at TechTown and set up shop in one of the boardrooms. As Raymond sets up the presentation, I get coffee for the both of us (neither of us can survive mornings without TechTown’s strong coffee, so this has become a daily routine).

10 – Betsy, our main project coordinator and Director of the DTX Launch Detroit program, arrives. Regretfully, we find out that one of 3 people that we’re supposed to be presenting to is sick, so we have to reschedule for 2:30. But Betsy is free, so we go over the presentation with her. We present our survey results about DTX Launch Detroit, the 4 high level strategies that we’ve come up with to improve marketing, and the many tactics associated with each. Betsy, always positive and supportive, is happy to hear our ideas. Specifically, she’s excited that we’re going to be reaching out to colleges and their entrepreneurship/engineering/minority groups to establish connections with them and gain potential applicants, and she promises to send us a list of contacts.

11 – Raymond and I make a bunch of phone calls – first reaching out to past DT X Launch Detroit participants to get them to fill out a survey we’ve sent to gather data on participants’ backgrounds and the success of their venture. Secondly, we’re performing customer discovery calls for CityInsight, a company that’s developed an app called CityWater that allows residents to track their water usage. We’ve done so much research already, but today, we’re trying to answer some broader questions that require us to integrate many different pieces of research together. We realize we don’t know as much as we thought we did, so we call and email many people in both private and public water utilities. Most don’t respond (as expected – it is 11am on a Monday, after all), so we leave voicemails.

11:45 – I take a quick break and go chat with Nick, the director of funding for TechTown. He’s just come back from a trip to Yellowstone and he briefs me on what’s expected for our new project – writing a Case for Support for DTX Launch Detroit. We’d already gotten a head start the week before by interviewing 2 successful startups from the program and writing blurbs for the document on them.

​12:30 – Lunch time! Usually we’ll go to the Henry Ford Hospital to eat an inexpensive yet delicious lunch, but today I’ve brought leftover pasta from last night’s homemade dinner (I’m really making more of an effort to save money in these last 3 weeks of the program, so I’ve committed to bringing a bagged lunch everyday this week). So I sit in my corner and eat my lunch and read the news.

1:15 – Raymond’s back from lunch and I’ve finished eating my lunch, reading some news and sending out a couple of emails. We get back to our phone calls.

2:15-2:45 – Me and Raymond get set up for our meeting, but we find out the people we’re meeting with have a meeting going overtime. So we relax and go on Facebook and Linkedin (we add everyone we’ve met from TechTown).

2:55-3:30 – Everyone expected slowly trickles in and so do 2 other very important TechTown employees. Raymond and I give our presentation for the second time today. This time, we have a lively discussion throughout the presentation – we are so excited that everyone is engaged, and the conversation flows naturally so that the meeting goes way overtime (we had practiced so that we could give the presentation in 10-12 minutes). By the end of it, we’re excited to begin working on some of the tactics we’ve come up with and we’re looking forward to exploring new ones that were brought up in the meeting.

3:30-4:30 – Work work work work work – we do some more calls, I update the Timeline, I send an email to everyone at the presentation recapping what we’ve gone over, and so on.

4:30 – We sit in on CityInsight’s practice pitch for Thursday’s actual pitch. This is the second time the CEO, Abess, has pitched in front of us – the first time was on Saturday, when we came to TechTown to go over the pitch and some of our new research and calculations, and then spent the evening in downtown Detroit traversing the Riverfront, going on the People Mover, and eating flaming cheese and gyros in Greektown. This time around, Abess is way more confident and gives way more details in the presentation. We give some tips and present a couple more of our findings from today’s market research.

5 – Raymond and I are about to leave for the gym when we find out that the CEO of RecoveryPark Farms (a high-tech Detroit farm that employs recovering citizens) is going to be presenting in the same room shortly. Since we’re going there on Friday to visit the farm and do some volunteer farming, we decide to sit in. The CEO, Gary, is extremely put together. He’s clearly had a lot of entrepreneurial experience, and he tells us that this is his 8th successful venture. Leaving the meeting, Raymond and I enthusiastically discuss how downright awesome Gary is. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful network of entrepreneurs and social innovators here in Detroit.

5:45 – We meet fellow Dukie Ben at the gym and work out. Honestly, it’s my first time working out in a couple of days, so I feel out of breath more easily on the treadmill and have less tolerance for wariness/pain. But though I’m tired after leaving the gym, I feel refreshed, and know that a long shower will wake me up.

 7 – I cook dinner! A sandwich with a sunny side-up egg, ham, and cheese. OJ to top it off, and bananas and peanut butter for dessert.

8 – I get a phone call from my sister Melinda – it’s been an exact 24 hours since we’ve talked, so it’s nice to talk again. Mel tells me about her time at summer camp and asks if it’s 2 or 3 weeks that I’ll be back. I say 3 and she complains and whines, and I laugh and tell her that there’s nothing I can do about it, but that I’m excited to come home soon and play with her like old times (she’s 8, so riding our bikes and going to the playground are our favorite activities to do together).

9 – I’m on my computer and phone catching up with a bunch of my friends, responding to my emails, watching random Youtube videos with Ben, and of course, writing my blog post! On other nights, for example, I would be playing Settlers of Catan with Joe, Henry, and Keiley or watching a movie with Raymond and Caroline. I’m still sort of reeling from Ex Machina. Okay, not sort of – completely.

1am – I’m done with the blog post and it's bedtime! And so ends a day in the life of a DukeEngage in Detroit student.

Detroit: A day in the life
 
8:20am: Alarm goes off for the first time. Remain sound asleep for 10-15 minutes before responding and hitting snooze.
 
8:30am: Snooze is up, turn off alarm.
 
8:45am: Second alarm goes off, snooze a number of times.
 
9:15am: Finally manage to drag myself out of bed. Shower and dress for work, pack a lunch of a ham sandwich, cheese puffs, an apple, and a Whole Foods ginger ale. Pop a few ice cubes out of the tray, throw them in my bottle, and run out the door.
 
9:45am: Stop at Tim Horton’s, a few minutes down the 1-mile walk to work. Order a bagel with cream cheese and a large coffee with one cream and one sugar for $4. Walk the rest of the way to Techtown.
 
10am: Throw my lunch in the fridge, sit down next to my partner Ashka, read the NYT Morning Briefing. Check the front page of reddit, upvote a few comments, finish my bagel and coffee, decide to get to work.
 
10:20am: Read an area plan of Detroit or another city in Michigan. Read a few articles on urban planning. Take some notes, work on Corktown blog for the week.
 
12:45am: Go to the fridge and grab my lunch. Eat while watching random videos, talking to people, or reading articles from Facebook links.
 
1:15pm: Get back to work on the PlacePlan, this varies from day to day.  
 
4:45: Play a few games of ping pong with Shamil, the graduate student who is working at Corktown with us.  
 
5:30: Make a social media post for Corktown, pack up, and walk back to University Towers.
 
5:45: Have a snack, watch an episode of The Office.
 
6:15: Go to the gym and play basketball.
 
7:45: Come back from the gym, shower, start working for my summer writing class.
 
9:00: Henry makes dinner for both of us <3
 
9:30: Finish dinner, do the dishes.
 
9:45: Start playing Settlers of Catan with Keiley and Henry. I usually do well but it’s always good competition. Sometime I get mad at them but my threats are always out of love and we’re all friends when the game is over.
 
11:00: Sit around, play some guitar, hang out with everyone.
 
11:30: Watch Netflix, read, Facetime, or some combination thereof. Eat chips and hummus.
 
12:45: Get ready for bed.
 
1:15: Groove to some indie deep cuts while peacefully drifting off to sleep.  
 

Anytime an employment application asks who they should notify in case of an emergency, I always write, "A very good doctor.

I’ve only had one job before —a typical retail assistant in the mall (shoutout to Abercrombie). So I’ve never really experienced actual nine-to-five working culture before —before coming to Detroit that is.
One of the things that first attracted me to the Duke Engage program in Detroit was the chance to work with startups. I’d get to experience real (as opposed to fake?) working culture.

Fast forward from when I was applying to now —five weeks into the program— and I can confidently say that I’ve experienced both startup culture and a nine-to-five working conditions (although I know it’s not completely representative).

So let me take you through ~a day in the life~.

Hearing my alarm at 8:30am, I hit snooze. A few more swats at the snooze button, and I’m finally up and ready for the day. A shower, some eggs, and half a coffee later I’m at work.

At this point, Joe and I crack open our laptops to check Slack —a messaging/posting website for teams that Human Scale Studios uses. Our eyes quickly skim the recent posts and messages as we chat about who won last night’s game of Catan (usually Joe) or who slept more over the weekend (usually me). We then make our respective to-do lists and begin our work.

We usually work until our stomachs signal it’s time for some lunch. I’ll grab something from a nearby food truck, scout out free food up for grabs somewhere in TechTown (there’s always free food somewhere) , or unpack a summer salad I packed that morning (I have yet to get creative with my lunches). While eating, we’ll usually talk to each other, briefly surf social media, or visit our fellow TechTown interns Raymond and Mabel.

Post-lunch is a continuation of working on our laptops, peppered with the occasional meeting. Mondays we’ll have Team Meetings and the rest of the week is spotted with conferences for various projects we’re working on, such as the Community Pop-Up Living Room, the People First Project, and Open Streets. Working on so many projects has its perks; we never get bored.

By 5:30, there’s a steady stream of people filtering out of TechTown. As we pack up to head back, we update Shamil on what we’ve accomplished and he gives us a rundown of what’s in store for tomorrow. 

At this point, I would usually grab my bike, hop on, and pedal the seven minutes it took to get back to University Towers. I’d have a smile on my face and the wind streaming through the holes in my helmet (I’m a safe rider). But plot twist: my bike got stolen over the past weekend. I’m a little salty at the moment.

But I won’t dwell on that too much. After I get back, I’ll hit up  the gym (unless I’m feeling lazy) and come back to shower. I whip up an easy dinner (currently working on diversifying my cooking repertoire). Evenings are usually pretty relaxed, unless it’s one of those crazy weeks we have something planned every night (like group dinners, Human Scale barbecues, or mixers). 

I love how no two evenings are the same; sometimes we’ll go out to dinner (food options in Midtown are legit); other days we’ll huddle up for a movie or show.

Five weeks into Duke Engage and I feel like I’ve learned so much. From basic CSS coding to understanding Place Plans and everything in between, Joe and I have soaked in a lot of new information. These next three weeks have a lot in store and I’m excited to see where our projects take us!

​With my alarm clock getting louder at 7:30 am, I wake up on my bed, still can’t believe it's the Monday of 6th week in Detroit. As usual, I take out my yoga mat and follow my 40 minutes morning yoga routine.
 
Peacefully and cheerily, I begin my day in Detroit.
 
It has been the first time in my life I live in a suit with other three girls. We have a common living room and a spacious open kitchen. We have a fridge that stores fresh vegetables and fruits we bought from Eastern Market and Whole Food. In the morning, I can hear the sound of pans kissing the cabinets, then the smell of the eggs, cooked oatmeal. To save time (or just a lazy girlJ), I always make blueberry sandwiches and eat them on my way to work.
 
People are jealous about the walking distance I have: 2 minutes walking. The place I work in is called Green Garage. It was a showroom for Model T back to 1920s. The engineer couple, Tom and his wife, bought the room and turned it into sustainable startup incubator for local Detroit.
 
Henry, I and two other University of Michigan interns always work in the same long table which we jokily call “Intern Table”. All the things we work for Detroit Food Academy are project-based; therefore, Henry and I always sit down and use 10 minutes to set our goals for today and this week in the morning before we get into our work. So far, we have accomplished inventory system, lot tracking system, social marketing schedule planning, summer curriculum for next summer and so on. The working environment in Green Garage is very casual and relaxing. When Henry and I all dressed in business formal for the first day of work, we were shocked by people in shorts and T-shirts. Green Garage also offers fresh brewing coffee, tea and milk in the kitchen and the best cookies and brownies sometime provided by residences in Green Garage. It also has a cozy spot on the second floor for people to take a nap anytime during the day. I can’t recall any place I intern with such humanized design for workers.
 
Usually, Henry and I sit along the table so we can communicate more efficiently and easily. We work on our computers for most of time and share our documents online. We also take breaks during the work and have time to explore the neighborhood. We like eating in Avalon International Bread for its Chicken Sandwich, or pocket sandwich store next to it. Sometimes, we would choose the leftover warps or salads from Fresh Corner and sit together in intern table with other interns, chatting about experience in Detroit and sharing intern lives of this week.
 
5 pm everyday, Henry and I will clean our tables and get ready to exercise. I will go to Yoga Lab for an hour Vinyasa or Slow Flow. Michigan is the State of yoga. In order to be more Michiganer, I sign up for yoga classes and get incentive to go after work. I enjoy finding my own peace during the gentle move. After yoga, I would go home and prepare a big meal to reward myself. One surprise I get during Duke Engage is that the sausage past (you can’t believe how delicious it is). After a busy day, I just want to sit in the coach, watching TV shows or watching Excel tutorial videos on Lynda. When it comes to work, I just realize how little I know and how fast I can gain knowledge through working practice.
 
It is my first internship in the United States and I am amazed that I feel comfortable and rewarding everyday instead of uneasy caused by the culture shock and language boundaries. I learn how to cooperate with my partners, how to live independently and how to balance work and personal life. I explore neighborhood area, make friends with co-workers and residences in Green Garage learn to merge myself into Detroit.
 

It has only been 6 weeks, but it seems I have been here for years. There is so much I know about neighbors and this city and so much I can talk about my life here.
 
Suddenly, I realize Detroit is kind of like my home now. 

​In my work at the Corktown Economic Development Corporation/Human Scale Studio this summer, we often think about how to make cities friendlier to pedestrians. While scanning the news I was happy to see that a recent report from Smart Growth America, in conjunction with The George Washington University’s Center for Real Estate & Urban Analysis, includes Detroit in its “top tier” of Development Momentum rankings. This indicates that the city’s walkability is trending up rapidly. Projects such as the riverfront restoration and Dequindre Cut Greenway helped secure this ranking.
 
This news reflects progress in the city as its residents start to enjoy the numerous health and economic benefits of walkable neighborhoods. These benefits are well documented in scientific research, and we have learned about some of the top reasons why walkability is important in an urban environment. These include the following:

1. Ample footpaths with access to recreation and retail areas encourage walking and exercise outdoors. This is especially important in a country where close to 35% of adults are obese and 93% of the average citizen’s time is spent in closed buildings or vehicles.  
2. Walking takes cars off the road, which decreases traffic and reduces emissions. 
3. Strong walkability increases property values and decreases rates of foreclosure.
4. Walkable neighborhoods see decreased rates of crime, including violent crime and murder.
5. The quality of spaces surrounding people drastically impact their quality of life; one study suggests that having a more complex and walkable environment requires maintaining a more complex cognitive map and can help ward off Alzheimer’s Disease.  

 
At our partner organization, Human Scale Studio, we have made significant efforts to increase walkability in the Corktown neighborhood. We recently won the Knight Cities Challenge award for our People First project, and we will distribute 12 grants of $5000 to selected fellows to fund transformative projects aimed at making Michigan Avenue a more complete street. The benefits of walkability are wide-reaching, and the findings of Smart Growth America and GWU indicate that the city of Detroit and its activists are serious about improving walkability and seizing these benefits. 
 
Still, in designing more walkable communities, we must remember that improving walkability alone is not enough to secure a sustainable and prosperous future for a neighborhood or region. Studies have shown that HUD-assisted housing is more likely to be in walkable neighborhoods but also more likely to be in neighborhoods of “lower quality,” with higher incidence of segregation and low-quality schooling. In other words, walkability alone doesn’t “create” a neighborhood, as other shortcomings can offset the advantages of walkability. For example, this article leads with the story of a woman who was happy to see her son walk across the street to school only to later realize that this convenience was useless because of the school’s poor quality.  
 
The presence of desirable facilities alone gets residents out of their houses, but walkability matters less when there aren’t desirable locations to walk to. In the development of Detroit and other cities across the country, a foundation of strong education, transportation, public services, and general financial solvency are must-haves. In the wake of this exciting news it is important to remember that walkability is just the start. 

My video is about Ponyride, a co-working space located in Southwest Detroit's Corktown. What peaked my interest about this 4 minute clip was the way in which the producers presented Ponyride. One of the components of my work here as an intern for Build Institute is to identify and map out the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Detroit. The types of companies Keiley and I have identified thus far have mostly been incubators and accelerators--organizations that are focused on nurturing aspiring entrepreneurs through classes, workshops, and networking. However, what I've come to realize through this video is that in order to create a more holistic picture of the Detroit entrepreneurial ecosystem,  we must also include co-working spaces as another branch of entrepreneurship.

Specifically, this video talks about the notion that by providing start-ups with a physical office space to work out of, it gives entrepreneurs a sense of permanency and freedom that they otherwise would not have had while working out of someone's apartment. For example, the first company that the video documents is called Floyd, a company that makes adaptable, sustainable, and easy-to-assemble furniture. The co-founders Alex O'Dell and Kyle Hoff said that after apartment hopping from Ann Arbor to the Bay area to Chicago, they wanted to settle down and establish lasting roots. While Ponyride initially providing them with a tiny 6 foot by 12 foot space behind its filing cabinets, Floyd was able to outgrow the space and continue to expand and adapt to its surroundings within Ponyride. In this sense, with Ponyride having the ability to guide Floyd step-by-step in terms of office space expansion, Ponyride does in fact play an enormous role in early stage start-ups.

What especially caught my eye was the types of businesses that Ponyride hosts. With Detroit having the label of being a predominantly automotive-oriented city, the companies that work out of Ponyride are anything but car-related. The industries of the companies that were highlighted in this video ranged anywhere from health and wellness to food and beverage to retail and fashion. This wide variety of companies goes to show the diversification of the entrepreneurial endeavors that Detroit has taken on post-recession.  
​
Therefore, I definitely appreciate and agree with the way in which the producers presented Ponyride. Additionally, it is important to realize that Ponyride is one of many co-working spaces here in Detroit. With some research, I've come up with other organizations that are centered around providing co-working spaces such as Bamboo Detroit. Thus, this video has provided me with a more complete understanding of what Detroit's entrepreneurial scene looks like.  

Article Link: http://www.detroitnews.com/videos/news/local/detroit-city/2016/05/25/84946750/

A company working out of Ponyride.

I recently read an article about a city in Wayne County, not too far from Detroit itself, which has undergone significant changes in its downtown community. What stood out to me right off the bat was the following quote: “They felt they needed to adapt to survive”. Wyandotte has had dozens of businesses come to fruition in this part of the city, marking a significant shift from the past. “People are realizing it’s a viable place to have a business thrive”.
As I pull quotes from this article, I can’t help but see a connection to Detroit as well, a city that has gone through some serious change in the past few years. While there are the titans in GM and Quicken Loans, it feels like there is a community of younger businesses making their mark. Working within the context of DukeEngage, and Small Batch in particular, has given me exposure to this part of the city- a part I might not have otherwise witnessed.
The other day we were at an outdoor pop-up restaurant feasting on some fresh food. It felt less like a restaurant, and more a block party. At one point the director of Small Batch, Jake, was speaking with the owner of a small food business. They ended up agreeing to meet and discuss the possibility of working together. They were not (at least I don’t think) scheming to take each other down as competitors. They were working together to grow as a unit. This is a common occurrence in the area. It feels like companies are aiming to grow not only for themselves but for the greater community, moving the city forward.
I saw the same thing reading this article on Wyandotte. There seems to be a synergy among the growing businesses, as though they aren’t satisfied with just their own success, but they need the whole area to move forward as well.
Growing up in bigger cities my whole life, from Washington, D.C. to Paris, I haven’t ever witnessed something like this. It has always been a dog-eat-dog environment, one in which people push others out to get ahead. That’s how I thought the world of business operated. At the risk of sounding harsh, I thought friends were made in the context of the neighborhood, and enemies were made in the context of work. It’s different here.
“We work so well together as a community. It’s kind of a beautiful dance.”

Article: 
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2016/07/05/wyandotte-downtown-destination-businesses/86736570/

I can always find free food in TechTown, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t my favorite perk of working there.

Just today, actually, Joe and I were offered four muffins from Avalon Bakery from a lady sitting next to us as she was leaving. Not wanting to come off as rude, we took all four of the muffins —a delicious start to an average day in TechTown.

Food is great —that everyone can agree on. Thus it makes sense how the acts of discussing, finding, and eating food can bring people together. No wonder so many important conversations tend to be held with and centered around meals (like family bonding at brunch or getting to know someone over dinner). Detroit too reaps the benefits that food and restaurants can offer.

Mabel Gray, a successful and chic new eatery located in Hazel Park, resembles an intersection between the “old Detroit” and visions for a new, revamped future. After reading an article detailing “Hazel Park’s suburban sapphire,”I couldn't help but draw parallels between the restaurant’s qualities and the growth trends of the Motor City’s startup scene. 

First and foremost is the location. Snugly situated in the“friendly city” (as Hazel Park is known as) the eatery’s location would surprise most. Whereas most trendy, young restaurants are located in either midtown or downtown, Hazel Park strikes the average foodie as a curious choice for a restaurant vying to be recognized. But by stepping outside the realm of normal locations, Mabel Gray has pioneered a potential path for expansion (in terms of location choice) when it comes to other restaurants and businesses. By stepping outside the delineated comfort zone, Mabel Gray has increased not only the likelihood of more businesses taking similar risks, but also the investment appeal and economic viability of a new area.

Mabel Gray’s location isn’t the only noteworthy characteristic of the restaurant, however. The article cautions the patron to “expect two or three wildcards”when dining due to varied food origins that spice up the menu; from French influences to tangy Mexican flavors, dishes never seem to fail to delight diners. The diversity of dishes paired with the curious location of the eatery go along with the general Detroit predilection and disposition for innovation and stepping outside of the box that I’ve seen grace startup culture here in the city. Working in TechTown has its perks (besides the free food, of course), one being the ability to work in an open space near many different companies. I remember speaking to the Founder of Pro-Up (http://pro-up.co), a startup focused on helping high school students find local scholarship matches and providing general college prep advice. When I asked why she founded the company, Justine Sheu launched into a narrative on the lack of funding for Detroit Public Schools and the resulting lack of attention from administration on underperforming schools and students. She wanted to help those left  behind academically by providing a platform that could even out the playing field (or at least try to). Before speaking with Justine, I had only heard locals rave about the tendency for Detroit natives to tackle problems head-on, taking initiative and solving issues themselves rather than waiting on others (or the government) to address them. To me, conversing with Justine had solidified that perception as fact. Through countless similar conversations with startups stationed throughout TechTown and Corktown (the focus area of the project Joe and I are working on), I can honestly say that the startup scene is diverse, vibrant, creative and booming. Mabel Gray represents exactly that. 

Sadly, DukeEngage’s stipend is a little tight so I may not be able to indulge in the somewhat pricey delicacies Mabel Gray has to offer. But reading about the restaurant both satisfied my inner foody and gave me hope on the future sustained success of Detroit’s startup scene.