While most kids are wasting their time mastering Xbox, high schoolers Albert Foo and Sharath Anand are developing a new fire-fighting technology, one that extinguishes interior flames from outside the building. So far ExtinBreachR has landed them top science fair awards and a couple of small grants. But they've got bigger plans.

Entrepreneurship isn't what it used to be. The scene today is explicitly about social engagement and collaborative leadership. This special report finds examples in three key Michigan places where new models for growth are being created and nurtured.

Join Model D Feb. 29 at the newly renovated M@dison Building, home to Detroit Venture Partners and a growing family of companies, for a conversation about getting from startup to second stage. Registration begins now.

One excels at style. The other, substance. But when it comes to nurturing an entrepreneurial ecosystem, both matter. Jon Zemke attends Silicon Valley's quarterly Founder Showcase and our own annual business plan competition, Accelerate Michigan, and finds a clash of both cultures and community.

Is Detroit a forbidden city for Korean companies? "Definitely Not" replies Won Ghee Yang,  the President of Hyundai Mobis Detroit that opened an assembly plant in west side of Detroit in June of 2010.

Kwang Jin America is a company manufacturing window regulators, door modules and other components.  It has an assembly line in Sterling Heights, Michigan and employs about 100 Detroiters.  Kwang Jin America is a well-known company that has created special training programs and takes great care of its employees. Constant communication and strong management skills have overcome cultural and language barriers between Korean managers and American workers.  Kwang Jin America's approach is exemplified in its "Human Touch" program toward its employees, part of a tradition from its mother company in Korea, Kwang Jin Korea.  The company plays a prominent leadership role for the 70 Korean companies in Michigan.

From an engineering job with Ford to a serial entrepreneur in the process of launching his fourth company, Bhushan Kulkarni epitomizes the immigrant success story. A passionate booster for his community, family, and the state's economic future, Kulkarni chats with Concentrate about the challenges of start-up culture and the need for more mentorship.

No suit, a skateboard, and an endless thirst for start-ups, Dug Song is one of Michigan's more successful entrepreneurs. Whether its starting companies or organizing social groups or running a tech incubator, Song is perpetually in motion. Concentrate's Jon Zemke caught up with him to discuss both the upsides and downsides of doing business in Ann Arbor.