Headquartered at MIT, AIM Photonics Academy is embarking on an ambitious plan to develop a technician-training program in emerging technologies, attempting to answer the question of whether an institute known for educating world-leading scientists and engineers can play a role in helping train an outstanding technician workforce.
AIM Academy is part of the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics), a Manufacturing USA institute, focused on integrated photonics. The Office of Naval Research recently awarded a $1.8 million Manufacturing Engineering Education Program grant for AIM Academy to create a technician-certification program in collaboration with Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM). AIM Photonics and ARM are two of 14 public-private manufacturing innovation institutes created as part of a federal program to revitalize American manufacturing, collectively known as Manufacturing USA.
Until now, AIM Academy has focused on training master’s and PhD engineers, which is what companies said they needed, through summer and winter boot camps and online courses. Integrated photonics — putting light-based technology on computer chips — has diverse applications including LIDAR for driverless cars, sensors, data centers, and the internet of things. As the technology moves from the lab to production, companies will not only need highly trained PhDs to compete, they will also need a workforce of skilled technicians to fill their manufacturing lines.