EDC to Prepare AI-Enabled Workforce for High-Priority Industries
Building on our 68 years of advancing a future-ready workforce, EDC will lead a new education R&D project, AI Across Careers, which will equip community and technical college students with the AI fluency necessary to secure careers in the advanced manufacturing and energy industries.
AI Across Careers is driven by our goal to increase U.S. economic competitiveness by offering a mechanism to both grow and future-proof the nation’s technical workforce. Funded by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation, the project will meet the urgent need to redesign technical education to keep pace with rapidly emerging careers that use AI. While our team will focus on two industries, the systems and tools we develop will be able to be used by many fields.
“We must act now to build an AI-enabled workforce,” said Joyce Malyn-Smith, Principal Investigator (PI) and a national expert on STEM career education and workforce development. “AI tools can never replace human innovation, critical thinking, and decision-making. But we must strengthen our K–16 education and training systems to ensure the future and current workforces are ready to be at the center of AI interactions and in control of its outcomes.”
In AI Across Careers, EDC will work closely with our long-time partners Bridgerland Technical College (UT), Green River College (WA), Bunker Hill Community College (MA), Nashville State Community College (TN), and Harford Community College (MD). Together, we are leading a second AI-focused initiative and recently completed education R&D focused on data science careers.
EDC will also work closely with our development partners National Applied Artificial Intelligence Consortium, National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing, National Information Technology Innovation Center, and the New Mexico AI Consortium, which includes experts from Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs.
“We are excited to work with our outstanding community college and industry partners,” said co-PI Kirsten Peterson. “A key part of our work will be to strengthen connections between the colleges and high-priority industries to create and sustain a replicable new route to developing a globally competitive, AI-enabled STEM workforce.”
We invite you to read Joyce and Kirsten’s recent article, “Human-Centered AI Interactions,” and learn more about EDC’s Human-Centered AI and STEM Education and Workforce Development initiatives.
