WHAT? The 2010 Forum will be an occasion to explore new collaboration avenues with new strategic partners in our Great Lakes Economic Region.

WHY? To develop robust COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION plans, programs and build business & technology relashionships that address manufacturing challenges.

WHO? All innovators and manufacturers who are interested. C-Level executives, as well as the academic, government, NGOs/Associations and the economic development community, focusing on leaders and agents of change in the research, planning and operations.

Our region is the heart and the mind of global manufacturing.

With a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $3.7 trillion, the Great Lakes economy is the third largest in the world behind the United States and Japan. We are bigger than Germany, theUK, France Italy and China.

Manufacturing represents 16% of that GDP total, or about $600 billion. In addition, 41% of Canada’s two-way trade comes from the Great Lakes Region equaling about $200 billion (US) each year. Today nearly 2 million US jobs are supported by exports to Canada and that will grow with increasing trade. Trade between Canada and the US will dramatically increase by at least 180% over the next ten years.

The preliminary Agenda for the 2010 GLMC Forum includes luminaries and business decision-makers from the worlds of research, finance and manufacturing that reflect the theme of the conference – COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION.

Leaders of manufacturing – from across the Great Lakes region – will address the forum and share their best practices and recent successful tech-collaborations.