A six-story, state-of-the-art, multi-use home for innovation is set to open in October 2021 in downtown State College. Invent Penn State’s newest Innovation Hub will serve as the cornerstone of Penn State’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The Innovation Hub will provide the Happy Valley community access to high-end physical and digital making resources as well as offer coworking and event space. Invent Penn State expects the facility to serve students, innovators and community entrepreneurs.
Some of the highlights of the new Innovation Hub include the all-new Makerspace and Digital Makerspace. Makerspace will provide student, faculty and community entrepreneurs with access to cutting-edge machinery for prototyping and development, mentorship and education opportunities. The Makerspace will also offer various classes and training opportunities, a 3D printing lab and a professional painting booth. Meanwhile, the Digital Makerspace will feature the latest in mixed-reality and digital manufacturing, and will include high-end computers with the latest development software and a mixed reality lab for virtual and augmented reality development.
Happy Valley LaunchBox will also be newly located inside the Penn State Innovation Hub. Since 2016, Happy Valley LaunchBox has created over 182 internships and assisted more than 1,600 entrepreneurs. Programming at Happy Valley LaunchBox includes the FastTrack Accelerator and Idea TestLab, support for the legal and intellectual property clinics, an expert speaker series and other accelerator programs.
On top of all this, the Innovation Hub will feature a beautiful sixth-floor meeting space designed to inspire collaboration between innovators, entrepreneurs and the Happy Valley community. The meeting space will feature the most modern presentation technology and the ability to host high-level executive meetings in a 30-seat meeting room, or a larger conference in the 100-plus-seat conference and banquet space.
The new Innovation Hub in State College is one of the over 20 LaunchBoxes and Innovation Hubs embedded within Commonwealth campus communities across Pennsylvania to provide a wide array of no-cost resources to entrepreneurs and innovators.
