Northwestern trustees donate $4M to build incubator space for student startups

Two trustees of Northwestern University (NU) are donating $4 million to build an incubator space for student entrepreneurs. Michael Ferro Jr and Pat Ryan Jr each committed $2 million for the construction of the Garage, according to The Daily Northwestern.

Ryan explained the concept of the Garage: "Places like the Garage aren't necessarily for when you start your company," Ryan said. "They're really for a stage where you're working on an idea with a group of other students and you think it could be a business or you've done a project in a class that you think could be a business and the class has ended. It's really that space before you become a company but after you've already worked on it as a concept or a project, and so it's more of a formalized way of developing projects and ideas for the next stage."