East Lansing will soon be launching The Hatch, an incubator for up to 18 students starting businesses.
Set for a fall opening, The Hatch will be tucked into Scene Metrospace and considered an arm of the city’s already bursting Technology and Innovation Center (TIC), says Jeff Smith, director of both.
The city is developing the additional incubator because there is a large and growing number of students starting their own businesses. And as businesses move on from the TIC, The Hatch will create a feeder system for it.
Students attending schools of higher learning part time or more throughout the Capital region are welcome. Students from Cooley Law School, Lansing Community College, Michigan State University and others will qualify.
For $50 a month, a budding entrepreneur will get wireless Internet access, desk space and a chair on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. (Graduate students will be charged $75.) The new “hatches” will also get all the services of the TIC across the street, including a conference room, receptionist, use of a scanner, copy machine and fax machine.
But the best thing they will get is the interaction with each other.
“We found with the success of the TIC that the shared work environment generates business opportunities,” Smith says.
Source: Jeff Smith, Technology and Innovation Center
Gretchen Cochran, Innovation & Jobs editor, may be reached here.
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