Temple University recently opened iNest, a new incubator space that the school hopes can ignite innovation in North Philadelphia, writes Ryan Mullian for PHL Inno.

The incubator is meant to be a catalyst for innovative research, commercializing ideas, and producing startups, in the mold of the Penn Center for Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania.

According to Temple officials, iNest’s focus will likely gravitate toward healthcare industries, considering its location on Temple’s health sciences campus near Temple University Hospital.

For Josh Gladden, the university’s vice president for research, this is an opportunity to take life sciences innovation to the next level.

“There are expansion opportunities in the North Philly area that will also leverage some of the strings that Temple has versus some of the other institutions,” he said.

Temple officials hope for iNest to be a key cog in potentially fostering more innovation-focused development in North Philadelphia. 

“I think we can all agree that North Philly has a lot of underutilized real estate up there and there’s a lot of opportunity up there. There’s a lot of challenges too, I think we all know that. But I think Temple is well positioned to be at least a center of gravity to start building that out,” Gladden added.

Read more about iNest and the innovation can potentially be birthed in North Philadelphia at PHL Inno. 

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