A $24.9 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. will build upon the success of programs at Rose-Hulman Ventures to expand educational and professional practice experiences for Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology students and faculty. Through these experiences, they will provide technical expertise to help Indiana companies prosper, and thereby provide more professional opportunities for Rose-Hulman graduates in the state.

The three-year grant is the second largest gift received by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. The largest was a $29.7 million grant awarded by the Endowment in September, 1999 to create Rose-Hulman Ventures (RHV).

"Rose-Hulman’s progress with Rose-Hulman Ventures has enhanced Indiana’s profile as a place where first-rate educational opportunities exist," said Endowment President N. Clay Robbins. "The learning that occurs through the hands-on experiences Rose-Hulman students have at Rose-Hulman Ventures is remarkable."

Sara Cobb, the Endowment’s vice-president for education, noted, "Rose-Hulman Ventures also significantly enriches the continuing professional development of Rose-Hulman faculty, which redounds to the benefit of their students. The faculty opportunities at Rose-Hulman Ventures are an attractive incentive in Rose-Hulman’s efforts to recruit the best faculty available."

The Endowment’s gift will be vital to helping Rose-Hulman achieve its vision to provide the very best undergraduate education in engineering, mathematics and the sciences, according to Rose-Hulman President Samuel Hulbert. "As a result of this generous gift from the Lilly Endowment, Rose-Hulman will launch new and creative ways to provide the very best educational opportunities for our students and faculty members and help move the Indiana economy forward. "Expanding these educational opportunities will be important to enhancing our reputation with national engineering education leaders who for the past four years have ranked Rose-Hulman as the No. 1 school of its kind in the annual rankings published by U.S. News & World Report," he added.

The grant will enable RHV to increase educational and career opportunities that will encourage Rose-Hulman graduates and other Indiana college graduates to remain in or return to Indiana. This will be accomplished by intensifying efforts to foster the creation and growth of new technology-based companies in Indiana thereby enhancing Indiana's technological competitiveness and increasing the job opportunities for technically educated graduates.

RHV President Jim Eifert said the Endowment’s funding will significantly intensify efforts to build Indiana’s reputation as a place where engineering graduates are educated to be adept at technology development to meet today’s business needs. "We will build upon a proverb by Confucius which states, ‘I hear; I forget. I see; I remember. I do; I understand.’ I would suggest a fourth line, I understand; I innovate," Eifert noted.

"The Lilly Endowment has been wonderfully supportive of our efforts and those of others around the state to create positive change in Indiana education and its resultant culture and economy," Eifert stated. "Their continued support will enable Rose-Hulman Ventures to build on the relationships we have developed, the successes we have had, and the lessons we have learned in recent years. By extending our operations in partnership with other Indiana communities, we will establish an infrastructure that will permanently impact Indiana’s economy," said Eifert. "This is more than great news for the Rose-Hulman community; this is great news for Indiana."

Eifert said Rose-Hulman Ventures has already had a positive influence on the Indiana economy, according to assessment studies funded by RHV. "Based on investments made as of March 31, 2002, Rose-Hulman Ventures investments had created 334 jobs with an average salary and benefits of $54,000," he stated.

Rose-Hulman Ventures will increase the educational and professional practice experiences provided to Rose-Hulman students by expanding the number of clients RHV will serve. RHV plans to form partnerships with other universities, incubators and communities to provide technical assistance to more entrepreneurs – and technology-based companies. This collaboration is a logical step to provide business entrepreneurs with the needed technical and business resources to grow and expand. It will provide a larger pool of companies for future student and faculty involvement, counter declines in other segments of the state’s economy, and provide a robust platform for future economic growth in the state. This expansion will create additional client successes that will increase revenue to enable Rose-Hulman Ventures to be a self-supporting operation.

Rose-Hulman Ventures will establish a virtual Center for the Deployment of Disruptive Technologies to organize and sponsor a set of educational seminars and conferences. Disruptive technologies significantly change the way things were done or changes what things were done. Examples include technologies that enabled the shift to satellite communications, led to genomic breakthroughs, and created new categories of software. Disruptive technologies that will be the focus of seminars will include microelectromechanical systems, optical technologies and wireless technologies. The Center will ensure that the efforts of students, faculty and staff engineers at Rose-Hulman Ventures involve companies and technologies that provide the greatest educational and financial leverage. All Indiana incubator staff from incubators like those at Indiana University, Purdue University, the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center, the Hammond Development Corporation, etc. and students and faculty members of Rose-Hulman will be invited to participate in these educational programs that are key to Indiana’s economic preparedness.

Rose-Hulman Ventures will have a major impact in engineering, mathematics, and science education by providing real-world engineering experiences to more Indiana students and increasing professional development opportunities for faculty. As Rose-Hulman Ventures collaborative efforts with communities across the state accelerate, the opportunity for more student participation will increase. To date, approximately 200 students from Rose-Hulman, Indiana University, Indiana State University, DePauw University, and Saint Mary of-the-Woods College have been critical to the success of 31 client companies served by Rose-Hulman Ventures.
 

An important ingredient necessary to create a stronger economic development impact on the Terre Haute area is the addition of a facility for resident client companies to keep them in the Terre Haute area when they are ready to "graduate" from the incubator. This facility will be suited to Rose-Hulman Ventures clients who will actually manufacture the products designed and prototyped at Rose-Hulman Ventures or elsewhere. It will provide a larger environment for the scale-up for manufacturing that should eventually bring extensive economic benefits.