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NSF Announces First Awards In New Information Technology Research Initiative–

Innovative projects will maintain U.S. leadership in computer research

The National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced its first grants under the new $90 million Information Technology Research (ITR) initiative. The awards, which will spur fundamental research and innovative applications of IT, are a step toward building on U.S. leadership in this area of growing importance to the economy.

"This initiative will help strengthen America's leadership in a sector that has accounted for one-third of U.S. economic growth in recent years," said President Bill Clinton. "High technology is generating jobs that pay 85 percent more than the average private sector wage. I am pleased that the National Science Foundation is expanding its investment in long-term information technology research. I urge the Congress to provide full funding for NSF so that they can continue to make these kinds of investments in America's future." 

Dakota State University was awarded a $1.7 million dollar grant from the ITR initiative, one of 62 awarded from over 1,400 proposals and the only one in South Dakota.  The project is a collaborative research project lead by Dakota State University with involvement from information technology businesses, such as Lodgenet, Martin & Associates, and Schwans, South Dakota State University, the University of South Dakota, and 33 rural communities.  The five-year research project will develop, implement, and evaluate a model information technology education, training and economic development program that allows rural residents to obtain the skills needed to be employed in high paying information technology jobs in their local community using telecommunication and other technologies.    

The initiative emphasizes the subject areas of software; scalable information infrastructure; information management; revolutionary computing; human-computer interfaces; advanced computational science; education and workforce; and social or economic implications of IT. The program's main goals are to augment the nation's IT knowledge base and strengthen the IT workforce.

“Dakota State University is extremely proud to be a recipient of this grant.  Not only will this reinforce the importance of our mission, it will also benefit the state of South Dakota,” said Jerald Tunheim, president of Dakota State University.  “This ties into a number of initiatives in distance education that DSU has implemented during the last several years.  It also fits very well in the numerous technology efforts of Governor Janklow, including Connecting the Schools and Dakota Digital Network.”

The goal of the Dakota State University project is to develop an intensive information technology training program in conjunction with information technology employers that will provide rural residents completing the program with skills needed by the employers.  Currently, there are more than 800,000 unfilled information technology positions with starting salaries of $30,000 to $45,000 going unfilled.  Due to the nature of these jobs the employs can be located in remote locations, but the critical factor is that the people have the required computer and information technology skills.  

The project at DSU will train information technology workers and facilitate expansion of information technology employment in rural areas.  An information technology education program will also be developed for K-12 schools to prepare students to move into information technology careers.

“The project will impact the entire state of South Dakota as we create high paying information technology jobs for South Dakotans in rural communities and help to answer the national demand for information technology workers,” said Mel Ustad, program director for BEI.  “A special emphasis will be placed on Native Americans with extensive involvement of K-12 schools with high Native American populations and community colleges.”  

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For a complete list of ITR awards and project abstracts, see: http://www.itr.nsf.gov/

For the PITAC report, see http://www.ccic.gov/