April 27, 2005

Ann Arbor, Michigan – April 27, 2005 – Cyberstate, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping Michigan become a world leader in developing and applying Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that improve the health, economic well-being and educational achievement of every Michigan citizen, has received a major new funding commitment from The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation.

Dow has awarded Cyberstate with two grants, totaling $900,000 over three years, to fund new programs in the areas of health information technology (HIT) and IT-enabled entrepreneurship.

“Since its creation, Cyberstate has played a pivotal role in helping Michigan policy makers and citizens understand how information and communications technologies can best be put to use to improve the quality of life in Michigan,” said Margaret Ann Riecker, President of the Dow Foundation. “We have been a proud supporter of Cyberstate since its earliest days. With these new grant funds, we anticipate that Cyberstate will make important new contributions in our collective understanding of how IT can be applied toward two critical needs for the state of Michigan – healthcare transformation and economic development.”

With the support of the Dow Foundation, Cyberstate will be developing new recommendations on accelerating the arrival of an information-technology intensive healthcare system that improves the quality and accessibility of care delivered, while lowering costs. In the area of economic development, Cyberstate will be leading the efforts of the Michigan Entrepreneurship Education Network (MEEN), bringing to the effort a new understanding of how information technology tools can be used to train, enable and support business entrepreneurs in Michigan.

Since 1999, The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation has provided financial support to Cyberstate, helping to further its mission of “inspiriting and promoting new levels of objective research, analysis, collaboration and entrepreneurship in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) so as to make the promise of ICT realizable to every Michigan citizen.”

“The Dow Foundation has been a cornerstone in the Cyberstate organization,” said Karen Bantel, President of Cyberstate. “We are so greatly encouraged by this recent pledge of financial support because it affirms both the contribution we have made thus far and the tremendous opportunities we have before us to improve our systems of healthcare and entrepreneurship education through better use of IT.”

Cyberstate was established in 1998 by Michigan’s business, government and philanthropic communities. An institute within the nonprofit Altarum Institute, Cyberstate serves the public interest as a nonpartisan IT policy research, analysis and advocacy organization.

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