Community colleges are eligible to participate in two federal initiatives — the SMART USA Institute and National Network for Microelectronics Education (NNME) — that have funds for advanced manufacturing and microelectronics education programs.
“There are a lot of great opportunities. In order to do it, we have got to show up,” said Jared Ashcroft, principal investigator of the Micro Nano Technology Education Center (MNT-EC) at Pasadena City College in California.
During a session on October 29 at the ATE Principal Investigators’ Conference in Washington, D.C., Ashcroft encouraged community college educators to explore both programs and then contact him for more information.
MNT-EC is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education program to coordinate a national approach to micro- and nanotechnology education. The center offers faculty professional development, industry-informed knowledge, skills and abilities guidelines for curriculum, mentoring for ATE proposals, and the AT3, a national student internship program.
SMART USA Institute
Ashcroft would like to have at least 10 community colleges join the SMART Institute proposal he is developing. Pasadena City College is currently the only community college among SMART’s 117 members, which include manufacturers, universities and nonprofits.
SMART USA started in January with a $750 million budget. Its focus is digital twin technologies and developing the “digital backbone” of shared infrastructure for building, validating and deploying digital twins.
Girish Wable, director of membership for SMART USA, said members gain access to research, industry collaborators and the digital twin infrastructure the institute is developing.
SMART USA’s first $50 million project solicitation has closed; it is now accepting applications on a rolling basis for two other solicitations. However, only SMART USA Institute members are eligible to receive funding.
Ashcroft explained that community colleges interested in participating in the education and workforce development proposal he aims to submit this winter should join SMART USA as soon as possible and contact him. SMART USA’s Tier One membership costs $10,000 per year for three years and Tier Two is $50,000 per year for three years.
“I would love to have a community college-led SMART proposal with at least 10 community colleges as partners. I’m also working with 10 universities. Every single one of them are going to put $50,000 in; they would get $75,000 back, and that’s going to get 10 students in the cleanrooms at those institutions,” he said.
He is also recruiting industry partners and lining up in-kind contributions for the project that he envisions will utilize virtual reality tools for educating students around the nation.
“You have to bring cash up front to receive the additional 50% back from the federal government,” he said, explaining that when SMART USA funds a proposal, it sends the membership fees back through the proposal team, plus 50% of the fee the college paid.
So Tier One colleges would receive $15,000, their $10,000 membership fee plus $5,000 to use on their programs; Tier Two members would receive $75,000, their $50,000 membership fee plus $25,000 for their digital twin workforce development programs.
“You get every cent back. You don’t lose a dime,” Jared said.
National Network for Microelectronics Education
The National Network for Microelectronics Education is operated by the SEMI Foundation with $40 million in initial funding from the National Science Foundation. The U.S. Department of Commerce is also involved in the initiative, which SEMI reported in July may have an additional $160 million in funding over the next five years.
Mike Glavin, program director of workforce development at the SEMI Foundation, explained that the plan is to support regional ecosystems for microelectronics education and workforce training through eight regional nodes. Each node has potential funding up to $20 million over five years.
NNMEs request for proposals is at https://nnme.org. Proposals are due December 22. Four nodes are expected to be funded initially and four more in the future.
Glavin recommended that community colleges interested in participating in the NNME contact Ashcroft, who is facilitating community colleges’ connections to the nodes.
During his opening remarks, Ashcroft showed a PowerPoint slide of students in an array of classroom and internships sites and said, “I don’t get grants for me. I don’t get grants for my institution. … The only reason I think we should do workforce development and education grants is to get students jobs.”
