NSF New Mexico-Chihuahua Partnership for Innovation Center for International Programs

The New Mexico-Chihuahua Partnership for Innovation is a bi-national project funded by the National Science Foundation involving partners from higher education, governmental laboratories, state and local governmental agencies, and private sector organizations on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The proposed project will support institutional, state, federal, and multi-national initiatives to improve economic development in the U.S.-Mexico border region through collaboration among the partners.

ITESM Conference
April 20, 2007

Third General Partner's Conference Guide

Intellectual Merit
The intellectual merit of the proposed project lies in the advancement of scientific knowledge and collaboration in technology transfer in a region seeking greater economic development and struggling to mitigate the artificial barriers to coordination of efforts created by a bi-national border. The project will contribute to understanding of the special challenges to international collaboration and possible solutions/best practices. The project will also facilitate research on the technology commercialization process. More needs to be known about the effectiveness of market strategies, incentive structures, and strategic alliances that already exist. Such research will be carried out in collaboration with the small businesses and student faculty teams that are partners in the proposed project.

Integration
The New Mexico-Chihuahua Partnership is made up of research universities from New Mexico and the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, regional and state economic development agencies, National Laboratories, technology consortia, research organizations, and private businesses.

PARTNERS FROM MEXICO:

Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez
Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey
Centro de Investigación en Materiales Avanzados

COLLABORATORS FROM MEXICO:

Colegio de Ingenieros Mecánicos y Electricistas.
Asociación de Maquiladoras y Exportadores A.C.
Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo.

PARTNERS FROM NEW MEXICO:

New Mexico State University
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

COLLABORATORS FROM NEW MEXICO:

High Tech Consortium
Technology Ventures Corporation
Los Alamos National Laboratories
Sandia National Laboratories

Foundation
The foundation of this project is based on the institutions involved, will develop an interdisciplinary, multi-faceted approach to educating emerging scientists and technology managers in technology development, commercialization of research, and marketing. These international experiences, will develop an understanding of technology transfer and economic development on an international scale and better understanding in key factors needed to the support of technology development and commercialization and will illustrate how the development is different in different national environments.

Project Activities

Creating cross-functional design teams. Each university will provide interdisciplinary support for undergraduate students, with advisors from the faculty and partners organizations and businesses, to develop technology solutions to a defined regional need, with early attention to feasibility studies and links to a regional businesses and technology organizations and networks that can assist with the commercialization stage.
Bilingual Electronic Network. Project outcomes will be disseminated through this bilingual website and the electronic, bilingual newsletter which will keep all partners informed of project activities, internships, competitions, technology related events and opportunities for technology partnering.
Minority Recruitment. Participation in this project of minority students.
Students Internships. Identifying and supporting student internship positions with interested technology businesses and organizations.
Integrating technology development and commercialization into existing science, engineering, and business programs. The project activities will lead to sharing of resources to enable all institutions to create experiences within existing programs that integrate the technology and business elements of technology commercialization.
Technology Showcase. Sponsoring a Technology Showcase of student/faculty projects for an audience representing business, industry, government, and economic development interests in New Mexico and Chihuahua.
Goals. By involving regional firms in the process, NMCPFI will ensure that solutions are designed-and subsequently produced-with the overall technological market in mind. The students graduated from the participant institutions will also be involved from the beginning of the project. This will provide the students with valuable market-based technology design and marketing experience, and a skilled labor pool for spin-off or start-up companies. It is anticipated that students who work in market-based technological solutions will also work in the spin-off /start-ups when they graduate and those capabilities will place them in great demand to prospect employers since they will posses the scientific and business knowledge needed to success in the technology transfer field.
(Last Updated: June 7, 2006 9:31 am MST )

This material is based upon work supported by National Science Foundation funds Grant # 0438715

International Programs
Operating Hours: M-F 8:00am - 5:00pm
Phone: (575) 646-7966 - Fax: (575) 646-8131
E-Mail: LETTYV@NMSU.EDU ; DANNGOME@NMSU.EDU
Mail To: NSF- New Mexico-Chihuahua Partnership MSC 3567, PO Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001