Pivots: Coalition Responsible for Equitable Skills Training

Availability of a trained workforce of biotechnicians is the foundational aspect of a biomedical innovation ecosystem. Tennessee has many social, cultural, and macroeconomic benefits for life science firms and biotechnology jobs and is eagerly seeking to overcome the the lack of available, trained biotechnicians sourced from the local and regional community.

The Urban League of Middle Tennessee, the Tennessee Coalition for Health Science and BioSTEM, and the Tennessee Board of Regents, have assembled under the leadership of Vanderbilt University to pilot a novel model for equitable workforce development. The Coalition Responsible for Equitable Skills Training (CREST) project pilots a scalable model for equitable workforce development and shared economic prosperity for deployment across the State of Tennessee, the Mid-South region of the US, and beyond.

CREST is spearheaded by this organized, collaborative, cross-sector coalition that represents the three, customarily siloed, key ecosystem elements required to generate a robust workforce across any region: the community, the industry, and the education distributors. CREST is systematically designed to organize these siloed ecosystem elements into a system wherein the elements are empowered to intrinsically and synergistically support one another.

The deployment of this scalable architecture for equitable workforce development is paramount to repair and resurrect US competitiveness on the global stage and secure America’s economic prowess and national security. CREST will drive the upward economic mobility of impoverished and underrepresented citizens, empowering them to tangibly contribute to the forthcoming innovation economy that is poised to rejuvenate US competitiveness worldwide.

The experiential learning opportunity piloted by CREST will build skills and competencies necessary for participants to pivot into nationally certified biotechnician careers that will support the emergent biomedical innovation ecosystem arising across Tennessee and the Mid-South.

The first implementation of the CREST apparatus will be towards the development of a robust biotechnician workforce of the future in Tennessee. CREST will pilot and distribute, both state and region-wide, the CREST Biotechnician Bootcamp to train, certify, and transform inclusive cohorts of community participants into a nationally certified biotechnician workforce in 90 days.

The CREST Biotechnician Bootcamp will not create a new biotechnology technician training curriculum but adapt proven, state-approved standards, immersive practices, and positive outcomes of the three-year, secondary education, Tennessee BioSTEM program into a 90-day bootcamp. The industrial element of CREST has such a tremendous need for a well-established STEM workforce that they are willing to fund fellowships and programs that provide a sustained supply of STEM-trained personnel.

CREST will leverage this consistent source of demand by delivering the required supply – diverse, STEM-trained personnel - thus generating a positive feedback loop of prosperity and abundance. This project aligns within the NSF ExLENT Program, supported by the NSF TIP and EDU Directorates, as it seeks to support experiential learning opportunities for individuals from diverse professional and educational backgrounds to increase their interest in, and their access to, career pathways in emerging technology fields.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.