Partnering for the Future

INNOVATION

Partnering for the Future of Illinois

Avision is unfolding on a large tract of vacant land in Chicago’s South Loop a few miles north of Illinois Institute of Technology’s Mies Campus. It is the future site of the Discovery Partners Institute, a collaborative research and education center led by the University of Illinois System that will fuel economic growth for Illinois and the city while nurturing and retaining next-generation talent. Illinois Tech became DPI’s academic partner in 2019.

The university is sharing its expertise in such critical areas as computing, data science, design thinking, food science, biomedical engineering, and intellectual property law. Illinois Tech will provide educational, cultural, and research activities including the exchange of faculty and students for research, lectures, and discussions.

IMAGE: COURTESY OF DPI

“Illinois Tech is honored to marshal our resources as Chicago’s tech university in support of the Discovery Partners Institute’s vision,” says Illinois Tech President Alan W. Cramb. “We believe the future of Chicago—and the state—depends on expanding tech innovation to more of our fellow citizens as well as to new horizons of economic opportunity and entrepreneurship. Illinois Tech was founded on this mission more than 125 years ago, and we look forward to supporting that mission as a partner in the Discovery Partners Institute.”

With its focus on workforce development for in-demand tech jobs and on applied R&D to solve problems, DPI projects that in 10 years it will have trained and educated more than 7,000 students— including 3,000 from underrepresented and underserved backgrounds—and will help generate more than $200 million each year in economic activity through research and innovation programming. To address the loss of jobs across Illinois because of the COVID-19 pandemic, DPI and the Chicago technology initiative P33

launched the program TechReady Illinois, an opportunity for in-state residents to gain new digital skills at discounted tuition rates in courses at various schools including Illinois Tech.

Over this past summer, DPI granted $125,000 in research and development funding to the I-Brain research team led by staff at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Medicine and Illinois Tech. The I-Brain initiative is an expanded data repository for brain research. Also this summer, teams of faculty, graduate students, and researchers from Illinois Tech and other DPI academic partners as well as a number of Chicago entrepreneurs participated in the inaugural I-Corps program. The seven-week virtual boot camp for individuals interested in entrepreneurship provided them with knowledge about how to move their technology from a lab setting into the market and improve their chances of overall commercial success. The program is part of the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program. —Marcia Faye