Our Story
Our Purpose
The Manufacturing Diversity Institute strives to help employees, innovators, and entrepreneurs succeed in manufacturing careers and businesses.
MDI carries out our purpose by:
Designing and building diverse manufacturing communities via clusters & innovation ecosystems.
Being at the forefront of designing stronger and sustainable regional manufacturing workforce systems which includes building a customized manufacturing talented workforce.
Becoming a recognized accelerator manufacturing network.
Leadership & Entrepreneurship as the foundation of economic change
Our Mission
The Manufacturing Diversity Institute (MDI) creates a pioneering research-driven manufacturing diversity talent pipeline that increases the participation of employees, innovators, and entrepreneurs in the advanced manufacturing industry. The Manufacturing Diversity Institute achieves this goal through outreach, education, entrepreneurial support, and leadership development; and by fostering the pursuit of advanced manufacturing, scientific and engineering careers; and new ventures. The Manufacturing Diversity Institute emphasizes leadership and entrepreneurship as the foundation for economic change.
Foster innovation & entrepreneurship in underserved markets
Our Vision
Foster innovation and entrepreneurship in untapped business markets by creating a research-driven, diverse talent pipeline that intentionally and strategically links future leaders and entrepreneurs to advanced manufacturing economic development.
The Case Study
The Problem
- Critical skills gap in manufacturing
- People of color are the new majority
- Children of poverty require unique education and training
- Inner city education’s effect on entrepreneurship
The Opportunity
- Importance of manufacturing to the nation
- Making manufacturing the “Go-To” industry
- Emerging industrialized construction
The Solution
- Fostering the nation’s first manufacturing diversity cluster
- The institute’s operations & programs
- Interdisciplinary research
- Program evaluation
The Beginning of MDI
Innovation cluster dynamics
In 2013, the Global Capital Group published the “Manufacturing Diversity Institute White Paper.” The Manufacturing Diversity Institute is modeled after the Institute for Innovation, Creativity, and Capital (IC²) at the University of Texas at Austin. Over 30 years ago, IC² began pioneering what is now called Innovation Clusters.
Building upon the Innovation Clusters framework, MDI embraces Innovation Cluster Dynamics. New institutional alliances (denoted by segments and linkages), driven by the rapid increase in and diversity of technologies, are altering the strategy and tactics for determining how our government funds discovery and innovation. Looking at patterns, not people, in the way that physicists observe atoms offers a basic, yet revolutionary way to understand the ways in which we all live together.
Leadership
John Sibley Butler
President
Trent M. Johnson
Board Member
Kate Walker
Board Member
Keenan Grenell
Executive Director