ECC Participates in Collaborative Grant Program Event

ECC Manufacturing Technology Instructor, Merdikae Williams

“Preparing Manufacturing Technicians for the Challenges of Industry 4.0” was the topic of Manufacturing Technology Instructor, Merdikae Williams’ presentation during a recent workshop at Pitt Community College.

Community college stakeholders, including Williams and Dr. Bruce Panneton, vice president of instruction and chief academic officer at ECC, convened on Oct. 4 to discuss the NSF ATE grant program.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program’s goal is to hone the education of science and engineering technicians by focusing on partnerships between industry, two-year colleges and other institutions of higher education.

“A big component of this workshop was to discuss mentoring programs to community colleges in order to help them land the NSF ATE grants,” said Panneton. “We talked about how the process works, some of the things we went through to get the grant, and how to use the grant to help underserved students get access to training with the newest trends and technologies.”

ECC’s grant focused on Industry 4.0, also called the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It highlights more efficient manufacturing through the integration of digital technologies. Some Industry 4.0 technologies include robotics, automation and artificial intelligence.

According to Panneton, he and Williams shared their experiences to a group of about 30 regional community college representatives interested in growing NSF/ATE participation.