inc.
A BRIGHTER TOMORROW
What’s up with Chapel Hill’s innovation district BY H A N N A H M C C L E L L A N
The intersection of Rosemary and Henderson Streets.
64 • chapelhillmagazine.com • December 2020
PHOTO COURTESY OF TOWN OF CHAPEL HILL
elvet Nelson was ready to dive in when she started as program director at Launch Chapel Hill last December. Her professional laurels as the program manager at a business accelerator and co-founder of an education tech startup in Charlotte positioned her perfectly for Launch, an accelerator space between West Franklin and West Rosemary streets. Founded in 2013 as a collaborative project between the town, county and UNC KenanFlagler Business School, Launch was accomplishing all the things it set out to do when Nelson arrived on the scene: providing 3,500 square feet of coworking space for entrepreneur teams as well as face-to-face networking and programming opportunities. But a crisis her experiences could have never fully prepared