Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker and Lt. Gov.-elect Juliana Stratton acknowledge applause on election night. Planning has begun for their inauguration, which Pritzker says he personally will pay for instead of seeking corporate sponsorship or using public money.

STATE

U of I begins major push into autonomous technology

Research into autonomous technology such as self-driving cars and robotic assistants will be the focus of a new center announced by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The university has allocated $2.1 million for the Center for Autonomy. The College of Engineering is providing another $2.1 million to recruit new robotics faculty.

The new center will play a role in designing systems that function without human intervention and will provide increased experimental space for autonomy and robotics research.

Pritzker will foot the bill for his inauguration

Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker has formed an inaugural committee that will plan events surrounding the Jan. 14 swearing-in ceremony of himself and Lt. Gov.-elect Juliana Stratton, and the state will not have to pay for it. Pritzker said he will pay the costs. 

Events will begin Jan. 12. The committee will be led by future Illinois first lady M.K. Pritzker and Bryan Echols, who serves as senior adviser to the Illinois treasurer. The executive director will be Mary Urbina-McCarthy, who was operations director for Pritzker’s campaign. The committee is made up of more than two dozen political and civic leaders. They include former Republican Gov. Jim Edgar and his wife Brenda and Chicago artist and professor Theaster Gates.

Details of the inaugural events will be put on the inauguration committee’s website: www.ilinauguration19.com. It will include a schedule of events and a ticket portal.

Because Pritzker will cover the cost of the inauguration, there will be no outside fundraising to underwrite costs of inauguration events. Tickets to a Jan. 14 party following the inauguration ceremony will be sold and the money donated to Cabrini Green Legal Aid, a group that helps low-income Chicagoans navigate the criminal justice system, and the Illinois Fairgrounds Foundation, which is trying to repair the crumbling fairgrounds. Tickets for the inauguration itself are free, and will be available Dec. 28.

COUNTY

History center prepares for moving

The DeKalb County History Center is closing this week so it can move into its new building.

Staff and volunteers will now spend their time at the center’s current location, 1730 N. Main St., Sycamore, packing up artifacts, creating inventories and developing the local county story that will be part of the traveling Smithsonian exhibit “Crossroads: Change in Rural America.”

The center will reopen in May 2019 in the new building.

GENOA 

Autism center has grand opening

A former elementary school is the new home for the Northwest Center for Autism. Opening ceremonies will be held 4 p.m. Dec. 19 at the school, 123 W. First St., when Camelot Education and Genoa-Kingston School District 424 officials will cut the ribbon.

The center moved from DeKalb at the beginning of this school year. It provides academic and therapeutic services for students ages 3 through 21 with special needs including autism spectrum disorder, multiple disabilities, emotional disabilities and other health impairments.

The school serves 35 districts in DeKalb, Kane, DuPage, Kendall, La Salle, Lee, Ogle, Winnebago and Boone counties.

–DeKalb County News Briefs–