Governor JB Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) announced that $7 million in grant funding has been awarded to four grantees through the Tech Incubator Enhancement Grant (TIEG) Program to support entrepreneurship and innovation in key growth industries around the state. These grant awards will strengthen the resilience of both existing and new startup incubators.
The TIEG Program was designed to modernize and revitalize tech incubators across Illinois to meet the evolving needs of startups. This initiative aims to support the transformation of tech spaces fostering an ecosystem of innovation, collaboration and resilience.
One of the four grants distributed, worth over $1.5 million, went to Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The grant is going to funding of high-tech food incubator. This project is a new food processing and manufacturing-based incubator that will provide a lineup of high-tech, energy-efficient, and future-proof kitchen equipment that will optimize operations for food entrepreneurs and startups. The grant was sent in the industry of food processing, and next generation agriculture.
