Urban Innovation Center Ramps Up For Bronzeville's Innovation Economy

May 31, 2012 - PRLog -- The Urban Innovation Center opened a business incubator in the International Soft Landing Center of the University Technology Park on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology.  The Center is the 2.0 version of the Bronzeville Community Development Planning Studio which has held annual summits, design charettes, development workshops and technology training sessions for more than two decades in Chicago’s historic Bronzeville neighborhoods.  Bronzeville, also known as the Black Metropolis is home to several renown African American Business Pioneers, Entrepreneurs and Inventors.  
The Center is operated by the Black Metropolis Technology Commission, an entity of the Bronzeville Community Development Partnership.  The Commission’s Vice President, Bruce Montgomery believes that Bronzeville is poised to become the city’s Tech Hub and states, “it was critical to enhance the community’s position in the innovation economy and to collaborate more broadly around our core competencies”.  The Center business incubator model is called T3:  Tourism, Technology and Transportation.    It has developed three key products and services for the incubator; Sustainable Bronzeville designed to create a critical mass for a collection of urban sustainability strategies;  VisitBronzeville.com  a digital heritage entertainment network and the State Street Information Technology Corridor a smart community convergence plan.
Bruce Montgomery, a technologist and producer of the Technology Access Television, is also a member of the State of Illinois Broadband Deployment Council.  He wants to ensure that the Center is recognized among the regional innovation clusters that are emerging throughout the state. “  Local entrepreneurs innovate new solutions and create social enterprises in the urban lab every day” says Montgomery.   He adds that “community innovators may not be wearing lab coats, so the Center’s incubator also serves to help them recognize themselves and provide youth with an expectation that is a part of their history.

The Illinois Institute of Technology has a long standing commitment to university and neighborhood partnerships. The Obama administration and the EDA recently called on University Centers to focus on leveraging university assets to build regional economic ecosystems that support high-growth entrepreneurship.  Leroy Kennedy, Vice President for Community Affairs and Outreach Programs, states that IIT has always been active in increasing technology education in schools and technology access in community.  Leroy thinks that in the last ten years, “it was a natural extension of the university culture to have a neighborhood based component for programs like IPRO and the Knapp Entrepreneurship Center.   He added, “the previous TechAdvantage@IIT Program funded by Small Business Administration and current  Enhancing Technology for Small Business sponsored by JP Morgan Chase, have also help provide a successful track record’.  IIT will work with the Urban Innovation Center to help attract additional private and public funds for neighborhood innovation.  
The Center incubator has been partially funded by civic entrepreneurs and private sector investors.   For more information visit www.UrbanInnovationCenter.com.   Bronzeville Community Development Partnership (BDCP) was founded in 1989 and is comprised of seven locally based non-profit and education institutions.  The BCDP has a focus in the growth industries of Sustainability & Historic Preservation, Heritage Tourism, Information Technology and Hospitality Workforce Development and Training.