The Commerce Department’s U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) component is gearing up to facilitate a big push to build local technology hubs across the country, according to Alejandra Y. Castillo, assistant Commerce secretary and head of the EDA, who spoke at a Nov. 1 event organized by Route Fifty.
Castillo detailed how EDA has been waiting to receive funding from already-approved legislation including the CHIPS and Science Act to get started on effort to create new tech hubs around the country that will focus on the needs of those areas.
“We are not only waiting for the appropriations but more importantly preparing by looking at what makes a tech hub, and what are the ingredients that we need to put in place in order to have successful tech hubs,” stated Castillo.
“What we really want to do is to make sure that we are designing tech hubs that will be focused in the individual regions, and really drawing down on the opportunities to accelerate technology that may already exist in these areas,” stated Castillo.
Castillo talked about the need to expand on the different tech hubs in the country that have traditionally not had as an expansive tech hub for supply chain purposes.
“When you look at it from a much broader perspective, you’ll notice that it doesn’t live in one very limited geographical area, it may very much touch on an entire region in order to get that product from inception from the idea, until it’s in final production,” said Castillo.
“So, for us we also think about not only that chain, but we also think about the individuals, the people, the businesses that have to also participate in making that a much more robust and successful region,” said Castillo.
