Jump-starting a New Tech Hub

From 14 abandoned acres in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, Nashlie Sephus is plotting a $150 million transformation of her hometown into a new tech hub. It’s an outgrowth of the Amazon AI scientist’s work for the Bean Path, a nonprofit she began in 2018 that has provided tech consulting to more than 500 local businesses and individuals as well as youth programs. This new side labor of love involves renovating eight buildings and putting up five new ones over the next three years. They will house an innovation center for tech skills, an electronics lab, a photo studio, apartments, restaurants and a grocery store.

By 2025, Sephus hopes to have created 1,100 jobs in tech and the arts, 450 housing units, 20 grocery stores and restaurants and added more than 3.5 acres of event and green space to the area. The city has kicked in a $250,000 grant; Sephus has put in $500,000; and Amazon, Entergy, Airbnb, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and several local partners are also backers.

If successful, the venture could provide a model for other cities. But for Sephus the motivation comes from wanting “people educated in the state to have similar opportunities in STEM within the state as they do outside of it,” she says. “Lastly, I wanted more people who looked like me or had a similar background, to be a part of the tech movement and have their fair chance at innovation.” —K.r.