Tech Hub Oct. 8, 2019

Creating a local tech hub sounds like an ambitious goal doesn’t it? But other small cities across the country are in the process of establishing “mini” tech hubs. So why not Reading, which has the benefit of being located near established hubs in New York, Washington DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia?

Such an undertaking fits with the mission of the Penn State Berks LaunchBox which is located at the GoggleWorks. Through the Berks LaunchBox, Penn State is attempting to strengthen the existing startup ecosystem in the Greater Reading Area. We envision the LaunchBox as a catalyst for increasing the number and quality of startups in the community. In particular, we are focusing on assisting entrepreneurs with tech driven scalable ideas.

At the same time, there are a number of new and established tech driven companies that could benefit from being connected to an entrepreneurial hub. There are a lot of different definitions for hubs but for the purposes of an initial discussion we would like to offer the following:  A hub is part of a startup ecosystem and can be a physical or virtual location in which entrepreneurs and a network of supporting services interact as a system that drives innovation throughout the community, helping to create and scale up new startups.

Please join us at a meeting on Oct. 8, at 9:30am where we could begin to answer these questions and explore the feasibility and benefits of creating a hub. Terry McKim of Tippy is serving as the co-host for this meeting which will be held at the Berks LaunchBox and is scheduled to last two hours (but you can skip out early if you need to). Light refreshments will be provided.

Please contact us at BK-InnovationHub@psu.edu or 610-396-6400 with questions.