Category Archives: Conferences

ATE PI Conference 2023, Bridge Programs, Career & Technical Education, Conferences, Data Center Operations, DCO PD NSF Grant, DCO Tech NSF Grant, Design Thinking, Digital Fabrication, Externships, Fabrication, In-Demand Technology Pathways, Makers By Design NSF Grant, PDI NSF Grant, Product Design Incubator (PDI)

NOVA IET Highlights 4 NSF Grants at ATE PI Conference

Our team was on-point with presentations and exhibits at the ATE Principal Investigators’ Conference #ATEPI in Washington, D.C. this week, extolling the various National Science Foundation (NSF) funded grants that have provided us with vital avenues to expand technical education to help meet the need to fill #InDemandTech jobs and careers.

Northern Virginia Community College staff and faculty Josh Labrie, Natasha Schuh-Nuhfer, Richard Sewell, Cameisha Chin, Chris Russell, Jim Crane, and Thomas (TJ) Ciccone, (VP STACK Infrastructure) were on-hand to present and highlight 4 grants at the conference:

DCO PD (Data Center Operations Program Development), intended to raise awareness for the national need for data center operations education and to increase capacity for DCO education at community colleges and technical colleges around the nation.

DCO Tech (Data Center Operations Technology Training), designed to increase regional capacity for training in Engineering Technology and Data Center Operations through expanded recruitment, employment training, and increased collaboration between industry, K-12 educators, and faculty.

MBD (Makers By Design), created to strengthen the engineering technology pathways by providing professional learning for K-12 teachers, running digital fabrication summer camps, and hosting design challenges.

PDI (Product Design Incubator), established to train groups of community college students through a product design challenge, integrating entrepreneurship training and design thinking to guide students from initial ideation through the prototyping and pitch processes.

Read more about these grants and opportunities for fellowships, training, and more at https://lnkd.in/gyGpU22v

The ATE PI conference brings together more than 800 NSF ATE grantees and their project partners to focus on the critical issues related to advanced technological education. Conference participants represent community colleges, business and industry, secondary school systems, and four-year colleges covering projects in a wide variety of areas, such as information technology, engineering technology, micro- and nanotechnologies, chemical technology, biotechnology, and others.

American Association of Community Colleges

#DataCenterOperations #DCO #DesignThinking #Fabrication#Entrepreneurship

ACTE National Postsecondary CTE Summit 2023, Career & Technical Education, Conferences, CTE, CTE Fellowships, Data Center Operations, Data Centers, DCO PD NSF Grant, DCO Professional Learning Fellowship, Engineering Technology, Fellowships, In-Demand Technology Pathways, Industry Partnerships, NOVA IET Career Pathways, Professional Learning, Publicity, Soft Skills, Tech Equity, Tech Fellowships, Women in STEM

NOVA Launches DCO PD at ACTE Conference in Denver

NOVA IET launched the DCO PD (Data Center Operations Program Development) grant award with ACTE at their National Postsecondary CTE Summit in Denver on September 21st, with a call to action for college and secondary educators to participate in a DCO Fellowship that will bring them to NOVA for professional learning, then return to their schools and institutions with an action plan to implement and expand DCO in their service area.

Data Center industry experts  Anthony Hatzenbuehler, from CoreSite, Vanessa Kennedy, from STACK Infrastructure, and Jeffrey Cassar from Cologix, Inc., added their valuable insights as panelists at the launch presentation led by NOVA SySTEMic Director Josh Labrie.

Labrie opened by noting that “the DCO industry is growing fast and markets continue to strengthen across the U.S. DCO’s goal is to raise awareness for the national need for data center operations education and to increase capacity for DCO education at community colleges and technical colleges around the nation.”

One way this will be accomplished this is by bringing college and secondary educators to Northern Virginia Community College for a Professional Learning Fellowship.

By a wide margin, Northern Virginia is the No. 1 site for data centers in the country and the world. With NOVA’s upcoming Data Center Training Facility underway at the Woodbridge campus, the region is an ideal locus to facilitate training that will act as a catalyst for expansion throughout the country.

After the fellowship, participants will complete an externship at a data center in their region and develop a DCO Education Action Plan that can applied in their professional practice, inspiring and equipping more people to get into Data Center careers, no matter what their background.

Cassar stated during the panel session that “someone with a solid base education and  who’s motivated has so much opportunity within data centers. It’s a career, it’s not a stepping stone.”

Hatzenbuehlar added “what I’m looking for is somebody who has the drive, desire, and the aptitude to keep going and furthering their knowledge even beyond the education system to the industry they’re in.”

Kennedy highlighted the importance of fostering industry awareness and talent: “Data center growth in employment is outpacing the economy. There are so many career opportunities. We’ve been really big on pushing internship programs and diversity, trying to get women into the data center and technology sector. We need that talent. STACK has been partnering with NOVA to do these internships with a goal of finding them a place in the industry. We want everyone to be successful.”

Hatzenbuehlar later capped off the panel by stating “that’s what we’re looking for in partnering with NOVA – we’re really in need. there’s a ton of demand for operators and very little supply. We need to partner together to build that supply chain.”

Educators can apply for the DCO Professional Learning Fellowship here. 

Read more about DCO PD at www.nvcc.edu/systemic/dco-pd-nsf-grant.html

NOVA IET is looking forward to working with Association for Career and Technical Education and co-principle investigator, Sophia Ward-Alston on DCO PD.

Special thanks also to Thomas (TJ) Ciccone, Albertine (Laury) D.,  Josh Levi and the Data Center Coalition.

DCO PD is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

#DCO #DataCenterOperations #MissionCritical #InDemandTech

 

Business Engagement, Conferences, Data Center Operations, Design Thinking, Digital Fabrication, Emerging Technologies, Engineering Technology, In-Demand Technology Pathways

NOVA Grant Conference Spotlight

NOVA Sessions at HI-TEC in Atlanta

In late July, NOVA SySTEMic attended the NSF’s HI-TEC conference in Atlanta, Georgia. This 3-day conference is intended to bring together secondary and post-secondary educators involved in technician education, especially in new and emerging technologies.

NOVA led two sessions at the conference: Beyond Keychain Syndrome: Integrating Design Thinking into Digital Fabrication Education and Data Center Operations (DCO) as an Emerging Engineering Technology Discipline.

The first session, lead by IET Project Manager Chris Russell and co-written by Fab Lab Coordinators Richard Sewell and Mary Ratcliff, presented the Lab’s pedagogical work integrating human-centered empathy-based design into teacher professional learning, youth summer camps, and post-secondary education. This session aimed to help attendees move beyond keychain syndrome, or the tendency to introduce digital fabrication technologies by fabricating simple pre-designed objects.

The second session, led by NOVA SySTEMic director Josh Labrie provided attendees with an introduction to data centers and NOVA’s data center operations program, with an emphasis on how attendees could discover the industry’s footprint in their own region.

More about the 2023 HI-TEC Conference here

NOVA IET Programs Published at ASEE

On June 26-28, NOVA staff members Josh Labrie, Chris Russell, and Antarjot Kaur attended the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) conference in Baltimore, MD.

NOVA presented two posters at the conference’s NSF Grantee Poster Session and published two accompanying papers in the conference proceedings.

NOVA’s first paper – Integrating Design Thinking and Digital Fabrication into Engineering Technology Education through Interdisciplinary Professional Learning – used data from SySTEMic’s Design Thinking Fellowship to investigate the extent to which teacher confidence in integrating design thinking & digital fabrication changed after participation in the PL.

NOVA’s second paper, titled Building Data Center Career Pathways Through K-12 Industry Externships, used qualitative category analysis to investigate how educators planned to integrate knowledge about the Virginia data center industry into their practice following participating in a structured externship.

For more information and to read the papers, see the following links:

Labrie, J., & Russell, C., & Kaur, A. (2023, June), Board 226: Building Data Center Career Pathways Through K-12 Industry Externships Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. https://peer.asee.org/42661

Russell, C., & Labrie, J., & Kaur, A. (2023, June), Board 321: Integrating Design Thinking and Digital Fabrication into Engineering Technology Education through Interdisciplinary Professional Learning Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. https://peer.asee.org/42907