Starting in February 2017, Lawrence Technological University’s Detroit Center for Design + Technology (DCDT) will be launching a new Design Incubator, funded by the Hudson Webber Foundation.

The new incubator will boast four major programs that look to expand on opportunity in the creative and tech based industry in Detroit. Programs will include a business development accelerator course, coworking space, a student-run design firm, and a fellowship program open to graduates of accredited art and design schools.

“Designers of the future need to be skilled in design, able to work with diverse clients, and be able to apply knowledge of business and management,” said Karl Daubmann, dean of the LTU College of Art and Design and executive director of the DCDT. “This ambitious outreach component of the DCDT allows us to greatly extend the LTU mission of ‘Theory and Practice’ to the education and training of young designers and architects.”

The Design Incubator will provide a dynamic, collaborative space for students, faculty, designers, and professionals, as well as community innovators and entrepreneurs. It will be a place in which to work and engage in order to create new ideas and form business and service opportunities. The incubator will educate young, creative talent and foster innovation, design thinking, and the commercialization of design and tech ideas through active coaching and collaboration with industry professionals, in addition to providing access to state-of-the-art technology. The incubator will be managed by Christopher Stefani, DCDT assistant director.

“The DCDT Design Incubator is going to offer opportunity and a safety net for the growing number of emerging entrepreneurial design and tech startups in Detroit,” Stefani said. “We see the social, economic, and political potential in Detroit with regards to the transdisciplinary practice of these disciplines, and are excited to be able to aid in the positive development of our city, its economy and its people.”

It is the DCDT’s mission to act as an inclusive platform for the advancement of Detroit’s educational, economic and communal development efforts with regards to design, technology and sustainability.