The 518 Collective at Sandburg is more than a space, it is a commitment to the future of innovation in West Central Illinois, according to Senior Executive Sandra Gray:
“Our goal is to really be the future of ag technology. We are not our grandfathers’ farms any longer and we really want to be at the cutting edge of all of the innovation that will be happening in the next five or ten years in our production, whether that is row crops or livestock or specialty crops or soil sciences, those innovations have to happen somewhere and they may as well happen here,” states Gray.
“I am thinking of this in two buckets. One bucket will be for, I would call it, general business incubation, but making sure that all of those folks have an awareness and an exposure to what is going on in agriculture. Then that second bucket is people who are already immersed in the ag economy and have an idea or have a problem they have identified and want to take that idea to the next level,” Gray adds.
Sandburg was awarded a $1.8 million grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to create this agriculture tech-focused incubator in downtown Galesburg.
