A once in a lifetime opportunity is how the Chair of Wright State University's Intel Initiative describes the grants given to the school to train people to work at the $20-billion plant in Central Ohio. We spoke with Wright State professor and Intel Initiative Chair Subhashini Ganapathy about what the grants will be used for.
Subhashini Ganapathy: Majority of the grant was towards developing the curriculum for semiconductor manufacturing. And we will be supporting students in helping us develop the curriculum as well as having the experiential learning of working in a in a clean room facility and helping train other students and have some kind of faculty training. So, for example, if either a university or community college does not have a clean room, we can help train them and train some of their students, like have them cross register with Wright State so we can provide those kinds of capabilities through this grant."
Mike Frazier: So this curriculum is being developed for students or those who want to go through the training when they're finished. Is this a degree? It's just a certification that they're going to earn.
Subhashini Ganapathy: This curriculum that we're developing would be part of some kind of rapid certification or micro credential. Sothey can be earned as part of the degree as well. But I think the emphasis would be to look at how can we create these short, focused, narrow focused, skill-set building that can be either as a micro credential or as a certificate, a combination of couple of skill set to make a certificate for people who are interested in getting a certificate. And joining as a technician at Intel can do a couple of courses or one of a couple of modules and create those opportunities to train them in a very focused manner.
Frazier: Is this curriculum aimed specifically at Intel, or could this certification be used for another chip-making facility or another industry where those types of clean room tolerances or manufacturing tolerances are required?
Subhashini Ganapathy: Yeah, yeah, definitely can be. What we foresee is that, you know, even though this is currently working to develop for Intel, we also think that this would be helpful as it's only going to exponentially grow, like Intel is going to bring their suppliers and their suppliers are going to manufacture some of these small parts. And they will also require this type of training, like you said, you know, it's not just for Intel, but I think Intel is giving us that headstart and getting us prepared for more investments that we foresee coming to Ohio.
Frazier: Are you working closely with Intel in developing your curriculum or is this something you can do on your own?
Subhashini Ganapathy: Intel has provided us with an advisory board that we can work with in terms of developing the content or getting some expertise in developing the content.
Frazier: Are you collaborating with other universities in this effort?
Subhashini Ganapathy: Yes. And we are one of the four universities along with the University of Cincinnati. So we have Miami University, UC, University of Dayton, and Wright State that are the core partners in developing the curriculum. But we also have 11 other universities who will be the ones that will help train. The other project is where we are working with Central State University. And Central State University is the lead on that particular project and we are helping them. Our role is to train and consult and help build that capability at Central State. We want to build a deeper relationship with them in helping them develop some of these micro fabrication capabilities so that we can learn and grow.
Frazier: Are there any conditions tied with the curriculum that the grants are paying to develop for those who get the training? Like are they required to work for Intel once they get their certification?
Subhashini Ganapathy: No. There is no such stipulation. In fact, Intel - they are supportive of these funds being used as scholarships and they really emphasize on looking at how do we increase underrepresented minorities, women, and bring more diversity in in these trainings that we do.
As everybody (is) saying, this is a once in a generation opportunity for us. Ohio is one of the top manufacturing regions. So we have had manufacturing before. But this type of manufacturing is somewhat reasonably new. And so it's great for us to be part of that, starting from scratch.
