The Five Points Association in Columbia, South Carolina, has received a $1 million grant from the Darnall W. and Susan F. Boyd Foundation to launch a tech incubator to help local entrepreneurs develop their small businesses, WLTX-TV and the Daily Gamecock report.

The grant to GrowCo—a nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs and startups—will fund the launch of the Boyd Foundation Community Innovation Center located in the Five Points area of downtown Columbia. In addition, the grant will cover operating costs for two years.

Relative to its population, the Columbia Midlands region should be able to support 5,000 high-tech, high-growth entrepreneurs, but currently has only 20 to 30 identifiable tech startups. The incubator will work to develop technology talent and keep entrepreneurs in the area rather than see them move to larger markets.

Chris Heivly, a co-founder of MapQuest, board member of GrowCo, and a volunteer at the new center, told the Daily Gamecock that the Five Points area, with its young and artistic population, presented an opportunity for collaboration between creatives and innovators. “In any given population, especially in college, about 10 percent of the students…are entrepreneurs,” said Heivly, noting the proximity of the University of South Carolina’s College of Engineering and Computing. “But they’re not going to figure out how…to build those muscles inside the university. You can’t really teach entrepreneurship—you have to live [it].”

(Photo credit: GettyImages/AJ Watt)