Downtown Youngstown innovation facility opens to “spark creativity in the Valley”
In March, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced the state’s $26-million investment in Youngstown as an advanced innovation and manufacturing hub.
One non-profit organization is welcoming the community to their facility to learn the ins-and-outs of manufacturing, with programming for all ages.
On April 29, Advanced Methods In Innovation celebrated the grand opening of the DiscoveryZone.live Innovation Space, located at 265 W. Federal St. in downtown Youngstown.
According to Bill Scott at Advanced Methods In Innovation, the DiscoveryZone.live Innovation Space is a multi-use space for local students, educators, business owners and community programming.
He said they’re looking to engage in the innovation maker space side, as well as career awareness and exploration for local schools.
“There’s a lot of economic development going on downtown here. There’s going to be a need to cultivate a local workforce, especially with the innovation hub that’s gonna be going on in the new Vindicator building,” Bill said. “Ten years from now, the middle schoolers today are gonna be of age to enter the workforce and start working there.”
According to Bill, AMI hosts Canva digital art classes, introductions to entrepreneurship and STEM lessons for in-school and after-school programs.
“We’ve been piloting some student programs over the last year or so,” he said. ”We have an after-school program right now with United Way. We have field trips with Mahoning County schools to come in and use the space. But we really want to get the word out about having some community-based classes and events, things like that in the space.”
Bill said they were inspired to open the Youngstown DiscoveryZone.live Innovation Space after teachers and students returned to the classroom from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We wanted to figure out a way to engage students with hands-on technology based projects both in school and also out of school,” he said. “Having a third space where students could be able to come after school allows us to continue to offer STEM content outside of the classroom and help them catch up from the impact of COVID-19.”
With the schools being switched to virtual classes, research shows test scores fell “about a half a grade level in math and a quarter of a grade level in reading.”
“Another piece of recovery from COVID-19 is trying to bring people downtown and have a reason to get people together here, not just come to this space, but also go to businesses and that sort of thing,” Bill said. “We’ve been downtown for a number of years now, and the pandemic was really hard on top of the construction situation. With the street remodeling, we’re really hoping to get the word out to the public to so that they’ll know about this space and our in-school programs.”
Head to DiscoveryZone.live Innovation Space for the new public 3-D printing workshop series called Made-by-Me, starting with a Mother’s Day hands-on workshop co-hosted by MiMe.
Tickets are available now at the DiscoveryZone.live website.
