MI2 Part of Kentucky/Tennessee GAME Change Coalition Awarded NSF Engines Grant

[Image: Game Change Logo 1]

A coalition across Kentucky and Tennessee named Generate Advanced Manufacturing Excellence for Change (GAME Change) has been awarded $1 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines program. The announcement, made on May 11th, was in response to the GAME Change team’s proposal for “Advancing Carbon Central Circular Economy Technologies for Advanced Manufacturing Solutions.” The Metals Innovation Initiative is a collaborating partner on the GAME Change team, and MI2 CEO Vijay Kamineni serves on the GAME Change leadership team, acting as head of Speed to Market for the initiative. In all, more than 40 unique teams were given one of these first-ever NSF Engines Development Awards, which provides two years of funding to help coalitions like GAME Change plan their collaboration to create economic, societal, and technological opportunities for their region and sets them up to pursue an award of up to $160 million to help implement that plan. The latter is the largest award ever offered by the NSF. The GAME Change team and NSF effort is led by University of Kentucky’s Ian McClure and Landon Borders, heads of UK Innovate. In addition to UK’s role as lead organization, many of MI2’s strategic partners are core partners in the GAME Change effort: the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, the University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University, as well as the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. These Kentucky entities are joined by their Tennessee counterparts on the core team, including Launch Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Tennessee Board of Regents, Tennessee State University, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and Vanderbilt University. “MI2 was an absolute force for driving GAME Change, and especially in recruiting a robust ecosystem of collaborating partners including many in Kentucky’s metals industry," said Landon Borders and Ian McClure, heads of UK Innovate. " In fact, our GAME Change ecosystem included more for-profit businesses than any of the other 44 NSF Engine development awardees from across the entire US. This is very important for our use-inspired approach to technology and workforce development. In that same sense, we’re also very fortunate to have CEO Vijay Kamineni chairing our GAME Speed Committee to ensure that we are working at the pace that our partners need to make a real and meaningful impact on their businesses.” Not surprisingly, Kentucky’s vibrant metals industry is a significant part of this coalition, which includes as collaborating partners MI2 members Kobe Aluminum Automotive Products, Logan Aluminum, Novelis, and River Metals Recycling, as well as Kentucky metals companies Commonwealth Rolled Products and Trace Die Cast. MI2 strategic partners the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, Commerce Lexington, Kentucky Association of Manufacturers, and Secat, are also collaborating partners, along with a host of other companies and partners across Kentucky and Tennessee. According to Alicia Gregory’s story on the win for UKNow, "The coalition of research, education, economic development, industrial, and manufacturing leaders of the Southeastern Commerce Corridor (SCC) of Kentucky and Tennessee under GAME Change aims to create a diverse innovation and talent development hub that secures U.S. competitiveness in Next-Generation Manufacturing (NGM) and supply chain logistics, supports closed-cycle manufacturing to reduce waste and increases efficiencies across sectors including automotive, aerospace, energy, food and beverage, and materials.” The SCC is defined by the I-65 and I-75 thoroughfares running through the states, which help shape Kentucky and Tennessee as this corridor for commerce in advanced manufacturing. We look forward to sharing more information about GAME Change’s efforts and MI2’s involvement in helping lead to Speed to Market efforts of this coalition in the months to come.