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WEST MICHIGAN – Young bodies soak up learning like sponges, so why waste prime developmental time letting babies languish in their cribs sucking their toes?

The belief that toddlers can learn neuromuscular patterns which create potential for eventual athletic stardom inspired East Grand Rapids resident Doreen Bolhuis to launch three businesses over the last 30 years: Gymco, Fit Smart and Motion Evolution.

“Like a lot of women, I am highly entrepreneurial,” said Bolhuis, a member of the West Michigan Regional Council of Inforum, Michigan’s largest network of professional women with 1,800 members.

“Most companies don’t offer leadership training and mentoring,” Bolhuis said, “and that’s what the new generation needs to take their companies to the next level.”

Bolhuis is delighted that the Michigan Economic Devel-opment Corp. is contributing $700,000 from its 21st Century Jobs Fund to Inforum’s leadership program.

The first public investment in the Inforum Center for Leadership will fund two programs: ACTiVATE, an online business vetting curriculum, and Astia,a worldwide network of mentors and investors.

These funds will spark the state’s economic transformation, Bolhuis said. That’s because women start more than half of all new businesses, and because almost two-thirds of new jobs are in companies fewer than five years old.

Innovations in products, services or technologies are the momentum behind most new companies. About a third of small businesses in Michigan are owned by women.

“Since most jobs are created by small companies, the way to improve the state’s economy is to help small companies grow,” Bolhuis said. “I’m excited about the new programs because they will help women-led companies achieve higher growth.”

In Michigan, 58 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 60 percent of advanced degrees are earned by women. Women hold 47 percent of science and engineering degrees and 48 percent of business degrees, yet women are under-represented in commercially successful new companies, said Kapila Viges, executive director of the Inforum Center for Leadership.

Only 3 percent of technology companies nationwide are founded by women. A likely ex-

planation is that less than 10 percent of all venture capital is received by women, Viges said.

Beginning this fall, Viges hopes to attract and recruit up to 40 mid-career female leaders from business, professions and academia for ACTiVATE, a year-long entrepreneurs program developed a decade ago at the University of Maryland at Baltimore.

ACTiVATE is an acronym for Achieving the Commercialization of Technology in Ventures through Applied Training for Entrepreneurs.

Through an online curriculum and weekly and monthly meetings, the program teaches women how to create technology companies rooted in discoveries and inventions in federal research laboratories and research institutions.

Participants emerge with well-researched business and marketing plans. In 10 completed sessions, 220 participants have launched 46 companies.

The fee for the program is $3,500.

Viges has also set a goal of recruiting 25 volunteer mentors from Michigan. She also hopes to promote awareness of the concept of angel investment.

“The program builds an entrepreneurial mindset,” said Judy Welch, VP of Inforum’s West Michigan regional group. “Women’s thinking tends to be more conservative than men’s. Some women just don’t ask, or ask for so much less than they really need. These are barriers to making a start-up company a growth company.”

Some of those who complete the curriculum in January 2013 will advance to Astia, a mixed-gender network of advisors and investors dedicated to women-led ventures which has its headquarters in San Francisco.

Astia will connect participants with mentors and endeavor to help them secure capital, including donations earmarked for woman-led start-ups.

There are about 750 Astia members worldwide. There’s a one-time fee of $5,000 to join Astia. The network has supported 1,000 start-ups in its first eight years. About 60 percent were funded within the first year of affiliation, according to Astia.

Women interested in ACTiVate should contact Viges at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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• activate
• doreen bolhuis
• fit smart
• gymco
• motion evolution
• west michigan