Hope and confidence are rising as North Carolina celebrates several major economic development victories, coupled with continued vaccine deployments. The state higher education system has long been an important economic impetus for our community. As North Carolina recovers from the pandemic, higher education is in a unique position to move the economy forward.
Jeff Williams, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, a graduate of mechanical engineering at North Carolina State University in 1985, says he is proud to create opportunities in the community in which he grew up. The company’s new campus at Research Triangle Park brings $ 1.5 billion annually to the state and creates new, high-paying jobs for at least 3,000 people in machine learning, artificial intelligence, software engineering, and other cutting-edge areas. It is expected that. These are areas of strength at North Carolina State University that offer special opportunities for students and researchers.
Apple’s news follows a series of key job creation announcements. FUJIFILM Diosynth will invest $ 2 billion to create 725 jobs and develop a new bio-manufacturing facility in Holly Springs. North Carolina State University collaborates with researchers in areas critical to the company’s innovation strategy, collaborating on customized workforce training through biomanufacturing training and education centers.
CEO Martin Meeson tells me that academic partnerships are an integral part of his organization’s current and future workforce growth. He emphasizes that collaboration is key to our collective success to meet the ever-increasing demand for biopharmacy talent, especially in North Carolina.
In addition to the pandemic-driven growth in health sciences, Triangle’s technology sector is booming. With Google’s plan to open a 1,000-job cloud engineering hub in Durham, Triangle will be one of five such facilities, alongside two sites in New York, Silicon Valley and Seattle. Become. Again, the state’s strong higher education ecosystem plays an important role.
Lilyn Hester, Google’s Southeastern Public Relations Officer, said the region’s research universities and historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) have built research partnerships to meet the company’s recruitment needs, leading Google to the next evolution of computing. He states that he is helping to do so.
To meet the growing needs of data science research, education, and labor development in North Carolina, North Carolina State University recently launched the Data Science Academy, an incubator for training and long-term research partnerships.
Access to talent remains dominant in a company’s real estate decisions, outpacing costs and other factors. A state with a strong education system provides a strong talent pipeline, which in turn has a positive impact on the economy.
In Raleigh, nearly half of the population over the age of 25 has a bachelor’s degree or above, above Austin, Atlanta, and Nashville, and slightly below San Francisco and Boston. Raleigh also outperformed Austin, Atlanta and Nashville, with high growth of 40.3% overall STEM completion. This data is based on an independent survey commissioned by Wake County Economic Development that contrasts Raleigh with the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.
As a public land-grant university, North Carolina State University is working with the public and private sectors to enhance education and learning. In collaboration with the industry, 190 startups have been launched, more than 600 products have been brought to market, and 1,500 patents have been issued.
These partnerships solve complex problems, provide real-world training for faculty and students, strengthen economic development across the state, create a more skilled workforce, and increase student employment opportunities. ..
North Carolina State University is proud to play a major role in supporting the economy. Through its unique public-private partnership, North Carolina is in a position to move the country out of the pandemic and lead it to a stronger economic future.
Randy Woodson is the Prime Minister of North Carolina State University and a member of the Research Triangle Park Board of Directors.