Center to help tech based small business could be coming to Palm Desert
Palm Desert may soon be the home of a new center aimed at helping technology-based small businesses.
“When you look at our students, what are they doing? They are all so technology savvy. They’re comfortable with it and yet we’re not offering them many opportunities,” said Jan Harnik, Palm Desert City Councilmember and executive board member for Coachella Valley Economic Partnership.
Harnik is among the those working to bring an “iHub,” or innovation hub, business center to Palm Desert.
“It will attract businesses from places where people can’t afford to live and we’re very affordable here,” Harnik added.
The iHub is taking a digital focus, collaborating with California State University San Bernardino Palm Desert, bringing an ultrafast internet connection with high bandwidth and fiber cables.
“We’ve been missing out on a lot of technology jobs type of opportunities because the bandwidth that’s needed to do the jobs hasn’t existed in the Coachella Valley,” said Joe Wallace, CEO of CVEP.
Some of the jobs Wallace is referring to include gaming, cybersecurity, and other jobs with a heavy reliance on internet connection.
The money necessary, $175,000, is already allocated. The Palm Desert City Council just has to approve of it.
The CEO of one business that got its start with iHub, Seco Sys Water Technologies, based out of the palm springs accelerator campus, credits the iHub as critical to his startup’s success.
“Am I grateful? Absolutely! You know, the bottom line is that the company wouldn’t have survived without the help of the iHub,” said Hank McCarrick, CEO of Seco Sys Water Technologies.
Wallace and Harnik are excited about the opportunities this could bring to Palm Desert and the Coachella Valley.
“This opens up opportunities to attract early stage and emerging companies and entrepreneurs to the Coachella Valley who prior to this couldn’t have done their job here if they wanted to,” Wallace said.
“The infrastructure’s there. We led the way I think for that,” Harnik said. “And maybe I had something to do with that I hope.”
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