America Achieves Congratulates Local Coalitions Forming Regional Tech Hubs and Building Good Jobs Economies

Out of hundreds of applicants to the bipartisan Tech Hubs program, 12 Tech Hubs to receive implementation grants totaling $504 million

America Achieves calls for additional appropriations, already authorized by Congress with bipartisan support, to meet local demand for Tech Hubs nationwide

NEW YORK, July 2, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- America Achieves congratulates the 12 regions winning Tech Hub implementation grants today. We are proud to have provided in-depth technical assistance to 6 of these 12 Tech Hubs. 

The Biden-Harris Administration announced grants today through the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration (EDA). This program was enabled by Congress' bipartisan $10 billion authorization of the Tech Hubs program as part of the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022 and an initial down payment of just over $500 million in appropriations. 

America Achieves is calling on Congress to appropriate an additional $2 billion this year – 20% of bipartisan authorization levels – to fully fund all 31 of the designated Tech Hubs and enable a second funding competition. Further appropriations would put Americans to work in hundreds of thousands of good jobs that grow local industries of the future and strengthen U.S. competitiveness and national security.

"In rapidly changing local economies, communities across America are investing in local businesses, good jobs, and quality training for their residents to solve problems, grow the economy, and advance national security and competitiveness," said America Achieves CEO Jon Schnur. "Today's announcement – funded by the bipartisan Tech Hubs program – responds to surging local interest and leadership aiming to build vibrant Tech Hubs and a 'Good Jobs Economy' that creates new, good jobs and ensures that local residents have fair access to good jobs." 

Nearly 400 local coalitions submitted applications in the first round of the Tech Hubs competition last year. Of those applicants, 31 became designated Tech Hubs in October 2023. Today's announcement provided a total of $504 million in funding to 12 of these Tech Hub designees. America Achieves also celebrates the incredible work of the 31 designated Tech Hubs that are poised to help communities compete globally, drive economic growth locally, and create good jobs; the EDA announced that all of them will receive significant benefits, regardless of whether they received federal funding this round.

The regions supported by America Achieves in their applications and receiving funds today include: The Tulsa Hub for Equitable & Trustworthy Autonomy (THETA) (Oklahoma); Headwaters Hub (Montana); the South Florida Climate Resilience Tech Hub; the Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub; and the Nevada Tech Hub. 

After working closely with these coalitions, America Achieves feels confident that the Tech Hubs grantees will deliver on their potential by using funds effectively and creating Good Jobs Economies in their communities – growing a local economy that equips local residents with the skills, pathways, and support to get and keep good jobs that deliver on the Tech Hub promise.

"America Achieves was a trusted partner supporting our hub throughout this process,'' said Wendy Harris, Regional Innovation Officer of the Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub. "From their expertise in workforce and economic development to their hands-on assistance with our application, they helped us lay the foundation for the Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub and our work to come." 

"Making Tulsa's Tech Hub a reality was no small feat," said Jennifer Hankins, managing director of Tulsa Innovation Labs, which led Tulsa's Tech Hubs strategy, "and required contributions from partners across the country. America Achieves brought invaluable expertise and capacity to our team and was integral to developing a proposal that ultimately resulted in a historic investment to secure Tulsa's economic future."

A clear pathway toward fully funding the Tech Hubs program is essential to sustain the momentum that local leaders around the country have generated. In 2022, Congress provided bipartisan authorization for $10 billion to support the Tech Hub funding competition created by the CHIPS and Science Act and the Department of Commerce. To date, Congress has appropriated $541 million – just 5% – of this funding. This funding, while significant, is a first step that has only supported 3% of this first round of Tech Hubs applications. To fulfill the potential of this program and build Tech Hubs that create good jobs across the country, Congress must build on this down payment and appropriate the full amount authorized.

About Some of the Regions Supported by America Achieves

• The Tulsa Hub for Equitable & Trustworthy Autonomy (THETA) will transform the Tulsa, OK region into a globally competitive hub for the development, testing, manufacturing, and deployment of cyber-secure autonomous systems, such as drones. Tech Hubs funding will create up to 56,000 new jobs, with half these jobs going to Tulsans who have been historically underrepresented and excluded from the benefits of regional economic growth. THETA will build on Tulsa's legacy of aerospace manufacturing, significant investments in the local drone industry and nationally unique testing facilities to build the Tulsa Tech Hub. In addition, THETA includes partnerships with Tribal nations and Black Tech Street to meaningfully engage underrepresented communities in advanced technologies and expand economic opportunity to these communities.
   
• The Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub aims to draw on Wisconsin's storied manufacturing history to position the state as a global leader in personalized medicine, an emerging healthcare approach that tailors tests, treatments, and therapies informed by a patient's unique genetic code, medical record, and environment. 
   
• Headwaters Hub seeks to establish Montana as a global leader in the development and production of "smart photonic sensors'' – primarily optical and laser technologies – and ways that local businesses and workers can ensure cutting-edge technology, in combination with artificial intelligence and machine learning, can be applied to self-driving vehicles, emissions tracking, and farm and wildfire management, among other applications. Montana's proposal centers rural and tribal communities and seeks to ensure that these communities help lead Hub projects and share in their expected benefits, particularly with regard to job creation.
   
• The South Florida Climate Resilience Tech Hub – a consortium led by Miami-Dade County – will advance gains that the region has already been making in sustainable climate technology and filling local jobs engaged in high tech efforts.
   
• The Nevada Tech Hub will put local residents to work by drawing on the region's rich sources of lithium and materials needed for electrification, to further establish the state as an international hub for the processing and recycling of self-sustaining batteries that can power electrical vehicles, among other uses.

About America Achieves

America Achieves is a nonprofit organization that partners with local communities to support a blend of economic growth and economic mobility – creating Good Jobs Economies that create good jobs in high-growth sectors and ensuring that participation in those jobs much more closely reflects the diversity of local communities than it does today. For more than a decade, America Achieves has incubated high-performing initiatives, launched new nonprofit organizations, and partnered with local leaders focused on making their communities better places to live, learn, work, and raise a family. In recent years, our nonprofit organization has helped design, shape, and secure federal funding for a series of new programs and policies supporting place-based economic and workforce development. America Achieves helped regional coalitions that applied for this funding, with a combined success rate more than four times greater than the national average.

SOURCE America Achieves