When the Biden administration opened tech hub applications in May 2023, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo highlighted the need to bring more tech jobs to communities outside the coastal cities where most of them are currently located.
“That doesn’t reflect our full potential,” she said in a video posted to Twitter at the time, adding that tech hubs will mean people nearby don’t have to leave their hometown to get a “great-paying tech job.”
That’s still part of the Biden administration’s messaging around the program, with the White House saying in a July 2 statement that the benefits of innovation and technology development “for too long have been concentrated in a few coastal cities.”
The implementation grants will support 52 projects across the 12 selected tech hubs, including those to support entrepreneurs and businesses, scale lab-to-market transitions, build shared testbeds and manufacturing facilities and train workers.
Among the stakeholders on tech hub teams are companies; state, local or tribal governments; higher education institutions, labor unions and nonprofit organizations.