“The HP award is recognition of the systems approach iFoundry is taking to transform engineering education,” says iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg. “Conceptual, organization, and curricular change must work together, and today they must work together in the context of great technology, both in- and outside the classroom.”

iFoundry seeks to transform the undergraduate engineering experience at a time when the demands of a creative era raise the need to develop engineers who are category creators, not just category enhancers. To help students practice engineering in an increasingly complex world, the pilot initiative maintains that engineers need increased exposure to design and increased attention to the objects of engineering, who they are made for and by whom they are made, as well as a larger picture of how engineers bring solutions to life.

iFoundry plans to deploy the HP technology, work stations, and tablet PC’s to create digital design hubs where students can explore these kinds of educational experiments and innovations conducted under the iFoundry rubric. The equipment generously provided by the grant will support collaboration in pilot courses in CAD/ID, between students in the learning community of a new freshman orientation course, and between the University of Illinois and faculty members and students at partner schools dedicated to transformative efforts in engineering education. iFoundry will also work closely with its Math, Science, Technology, and Education (MSTE) Office in the College of Education to support student volunteer efforts to educate local K-12 students on design artifacts and “how things work.”

More information about the 2009 HP Innovations in Education initiative and other global social investments is available at www.hp.com/go/grants.