The Building University-Industry Learning and Development through Innovation and Technology (BUILD-IT) marked the completion of its first project year with a retrospective look at progress to date and a look forward to our upcoming initiatives and opportunities during the annual solutions council meeting, held on February 28, 2017 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam. Executive level leadership from industry, academic and government partners convened with the project leadership team prior to the Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics Conference (formerly VEEC).
Kathy Wigal, Project Director for BUILD-IT and Associate Director for Curricular Innovation in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, highlighted key accomplishments of ASU initiatives in Vietnam. According to Wigal, to date, ASU initiatives, including HEEAP, VULII and of course BUILD-IT, have trained 6,973 participants — 30 percent of whom are female. BUILD-IT activities reached 739 tertiary institution faculty or teaching staff since the project launched last April, including executive leadership training and training in quality, pedagogy and curricular innovation.
This year saw the launch of the first Women in STEM Conference (WISTEM) in Vietnam, and the start of the Women in Engineering Projects in Community Service (WEPICS) program. These are exciting firsts for promoting female competition teams.
Hands-on learning opportunities and applied curriculum development dominate the landscape in regards to past success and future planning, with workshops and competitions in partnership with National Instruments, Intel, Amazon Web Services and Oracle Academy. Faculty have experienced new methodologies and pedagogy for teaching cloud computing, robotics and other areas.
Quality and accreditation remain a key focus. The 11 BUILD-IT partners have targeted a total of 21 programs for ABET accreditation and 42 STEM program for ASEAN University Network (AUN) Quality Assessment. To date, nine STEM programs from Ho Chi Minh University of Technology, Ho Chi Minh University of Technology and Education, Ho Chi Minh University of Science, and Danang University of Science and Technology were assessed by AUN in 2016 and 2017. Vietnam National University Hanoi-University of Science is also being evaluated for AUN, an institutional recognition for quality assessment — the first in Vietnam.
HEEAP also provided an update and an exciting announcement from founding partner Intel Corporation: the creation of the Intel Grand Challenges Masters Fellowship for high achieving university seniors.
BY KATHY WIGAL