The IDEA Center held its official Portage County Business Council (PCBC) ribbon cutting Thursday, Feb. 23. PCBC Ambassadors joined CREATE Portage County board members and IDEA Center users to celebrate the new community innovation resource.

The IDEA Center (Innovators, Designers, Entrepreneurs and Artists) is the key focus of CREATE Portage County’s “Innovation” initiative, which invests in infrastructure and programming to connect innovators to resources in hopes of building a strong ecosystem for entrepreneurship in central Wisconsin.

A hybrid of common urban innovation centers, the IDEA Center offers co-working space, a social innovation lab, a mini business incubator, and classroom, event, and meeting space. CREATE is also working with community members and business and education leaders to develop maker spaces to support information technologies, art and design and product development.

At its heart, the IDEA Center is a community of people, who are eager to engage with new ideas in hopes of launching creative arts, business, and community impact ventures. If you work from home or have a project you’ve been hoping to dive into, the IDEA Center is eager to provide access to the people and resources that will support your success.

The IDEA Center offers individual and team memberships, which provide 24-7 access to this unique workspace. We also support single-use rentals of our spaces for organizations looking for strategic planning, meeting, workshop or event space.

The IDE Center is currently running a special promotion with significantly reduced rates to help people acclimate to this new community resource. Interested users should email Greg Wright at [email protected] to set up a tour.

For more information, visit www.createportagecounty.org/ideacenter.