Delaware State University gets a $500,000 grant to help New Castle County businesses with COVID support.
DSU’s College of Business received the New Castle County Innovative Grant to create a web-based COVID Recovery Lab to help businesses in the county to navigate the pandemic environment.
Through the “Bounce Forward” initiative, DSU will design and create a virtual platform designed to serve as a springboard for businesses to not only bounce back from the pandemic but bounce forward.
"It will provide these businesses with real-time data pertaining to both industry trends as well as COVID pandemic numbers that will affect them, it will provide them with business consultation and support, it will provide them with training opportunities as well as peer-to-peer forums as well," said Dr. Michael Casson, Dean of the DSU College of Business.
The “Bounce Forward” platform will connect with top industries in New Castle County.
"We would actually have a data repository aimed at providing real-time data and information for businesses in that industry so they can see again employment data in that industry they can see the capital, the access to capital opportunities that are within that industry again they can align that with national trends to see what particular variables may be impacting them coming in the future," said Casson.
The money for the platform comes from the county’s portion of the federal CARES Act. The project will be housed at the COVID testing facility coming to DSU’s Kirkwood campus in Wilmington.
New Castle County recently put $5 million of its CARES Act money toward that facility that is expected to start processing tests this month.
