Success Spotlight: The Wedge Innovation Center
- Published on Wednesday August 7th, 2024
Author: Emily Hemingway, Executive Director, The Wedge
Photo: A rendering of The Wedge Innovation Center, to be housed in the renovated Wedge Bank.
The Wedge Innovation Center is a world-class, social impact center of innovation with coworking and offices for startups, businesses, and tech located in the heart of Alton, Illinois. The Wedge is part of a $30 million revitalization project that involves renovating the Wedge Bank and Elfgen buildings, incorporating sustainability features such as bike storage and showers, rooftop patios with greenery, street trees, and electric vehicle charging. To encourage bicycle access, the Wedge is located close to Madison County Transit's Confluence Trail, with future plans to extend the trail all the way to The Wedge.
Coming this winter, the Wedge is partnering with regional leaders to launch MAIN, the Midwest AI Network, a new 501(c)(3) that will also host a think-tank and Artificial Intelligence research lab in the Wedge Innovation Center. MAIN will serve as a public-private partnership striving to foster ethical AI leadership, front-line data innovation, and emerging technology collaboration between universities, startups, and industry leaders to drive the development of world class sustainable communities across the 8 Midwest states (Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota). MAIN Labs will be focused on cloud storage and is not anticipated to have a substantially different energy output from other innovation spaces not focused on AI.
By hosting MAIN at the Wedge, our goal is to position the American Midwest as a global hub for artificial intelligence and sustainable communities by advancing cross-sector research, promoting economic growth through ethical data innovation, and fueling emerging technologies across the 8-state footprint.
With other tenants and projects at the Wedge around health data, broadband access, and food hubs, the Metro East community will have a front-row position on building sustainable rural communities through collaboration and ingenuity.
