The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) was among 18 academic institutions to receive more than $100 million combined through the U.S. National Science Foundation.
The new funding — $6 million over four years — will support the institute's TechForward initiative, which in part looks to develop a more diverse workforce in high-growth tech sectors.
"The fact that Black and Latino founders represent only 6% of tech founders in the city highlights a disparity that not only limits economic opportunities for underrepresented groups but also hinders the tech sector from benefiting from a wider ranger of perspective and talents," IIT said in its application. "Illinois Tech's location in Bronzeville, where 86.6% of residents are Black, places it in a unique position to address this issue directly."
TechForward aims to create an ecosystem where IIT faculty and researchers collaborate more closely with industry professionals in Chicago's tech ecosystem. By building the infrastructure, culture and processes to support this collaboration, TechForward hopes to see more research directed to address critical societal challenges.
Maryam Saleh, executive director of the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship, said the National Science Foundation wanted to see projects accelerating "translational research."
"What they mean by that is that not a lot of research is getting to market where it could have a societal impact," she told Chicago Inno. "That can be in the form of startups, industry partnerships, in the form of EU policies."
While Saleh said that plenty of IIT researchers work on pragmatic practical applications, the university doesn't always have the resources to equip its faculty with what they need to get those ideas out into the world.
"This grant would allow us to do that," she said.
By building IIT's capacity to develop a market-driven process to identify, assess and advance seed translational research projects, Saleh hopes to fund two projects every year through the National Science Foundation funding. Each institution will also partner with a mentoring institution — for IIT it is University of Chicago — that already has a robust ecosystem for translational research.
Along with bringing more innovations to market faster, TechForward will also address underrepresentation in the tech sector by introducing first-generation college students and other learners from diverse backgrounds in the Chicago Metropolitan area to more opportunities in high-growth tech sectors.
IIT will create experiential training programs in research commercialization, designed for both degree-seeking students and non-degree-seeking underrepresented individuals in Chicago, delivered physically and online. They will then apply to work with faculty and experienced industry professionals to advance their seed translational research projects.
TechForward hopes to provide commercialization training to at least 150 degree-seeking students and 100 underrepresented non-degree-seeking learners.
Saleh said TechForward will launch in February and has selected its first two projects. Moving forward she wants to start building the pipeline of future projects and workforce.
