Accelerating community-driven innovation and social mobility
We Will Build Stronger Pathways
For underserved students into careers in making and entrepreneurship. This includes “maker” industries from advanced manufacturing and computer science, to the skilled trades and biotechnology. Many colleges and universities are investing in maker programs as tools to drive students’ career mobility, however there is often limited human capital to support these programs to their full potential. To address this need, MakerUSA will embed uniquely trained and well-supported Program Managers at partner Innovation Sites. We are specifically focused on partnering with communities outside our major economic hubs and will aim to support those that have been most marginalized by unequal access and opportunity.
Innovation Sites
Innovation Sites are leading community and technical colleges, as well as rural and minority-serving colleges and universities. The MakerUSA model also partners with community-based makerspaces and nonprofits as well as public housing authorities and workforce development initiatives. These institutions and communities are leading the way in advancing work at the intersection of maker education and entrepreneurship. All Innovation Sites have formally submitted a Letter of Interest to MakerUSA with the goal of establishing partnership and embedding MakerUSA Program Manager(s) within their community. The next step to enable this important work is support from the funding community to sponsor individual Innovation Sites.
Program Managers
MakerUSA Program Managers will be embedded at Innovation Sites to support community-defined goals at the intersection of maker education, entrepreneurship and innovation. At scale, MakerUSA Program Managers will become a new national workforce that is exclusively focused on building pathways into making-focused industries and entrepreneurship, and specifically in the communities that have been most left out of unequal opportunity.
Making an Impact
“A partnership with MakerUSA could become a central component of our goal to develop a state-wide ecosystem of makerspaces, anchored by the University of Wyoming and based in community colleges and underserved, rural communities across our state. It would also support our efforts to connect this emerging ecosystem to important entrepreneurship resources for our state’s makers.”
— Tyler Kerr, Makerspace Manager, Innovation Wyrkshop, University of Wyoming (Laramie, WY)
“A MakerUSA partnership would bring essential capacity and expertise as we explore new ways to expand maker education opportunities to our students, while doing so in ways that deeply engage community stakeholders, including our other higher-education institutions, K-12 schools, local industry and chambers of commerce.”
— Kelli Chaney, President, Tennessee College of Applied Technology Knoxville (TCAT) Knoxville
“The MakerUSA model is exactly what we need to address human capacity and expertise gaps in our efforts to expand maker-centered learning opportunities for underserved students throughout the Inland Empire/Desert Region.”
— Lisa Kiplinger Kennedy, Regional Director, Business and Entrepreneurship, Inland Empire/Desert Regional Consortium (CA)
Thank You to Our Incubation and Founding Partners
