AMCC Updates
View past weekly updates prepared by AMCC’s Executive Director, Matt Bogoshian.
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May 26, 2023:
| 1. No National Call this week in recognition of Memorial Day! Thanks to BFF Dan Swinney with the Manufacturing Renaissance for joining last Monday’s call, sharing his experience, and extending his offer to you and all of us to contact him if he can add value to your work. His take on enabling succession plans for small and mid-sized manufacturers was especially useful. You can access a recording and slides here. Our next AMCC national 30 minute weekly call will be on June 5th with JFF sharing important info on their apprenticeship initiatives. 2. Upcoming Webinar Co-Presented by AMCC featuring The Steel Valley Authority Building off Dan’s presentation, and led by Manufacturing Renaissance, American Sustainable Business Network and The Century Foundation, we are co-presenting a webinar on the Strategic Early Warning Network; an initiative developed by the Steel Valley Authority (SVA) that supports layoff aversion and strengthens partnerships between labor, local governments and community-based organizations. The first webinar will take place on Wednesday, May 31st from 2-3pm ET with Executive Director, Tom Croft, sharing the work of SVA through a case study of a company that was saved thanks to their intervention. The second webinar will follow on June 21st. You can register for both here. 3.One Month Until DOD’s DMCSP Deadline! From OLDCC’s website, 2023’s round of Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program designations are open! Regions need to apply by June 25th. We know that building a regional consortia to apply can be challenging but as many in AMCC can tell you, it can be well worth the effort! Just ask our friends in Mississippi, or Utah or Illinois, or any of the 14 other designated communities that have gone through the process. And by that I mean, seriously, ask them! Many of these past designees are working through the same challenges you may be planning to tackle in your region. Message me or David if you want help getting connected. 4.Tech Hubs NOFO Tech Hubs NOFO is live and linked here. Here is a link to the press release and program page on eda.gov. Tell us – what are you missing in your conversations and applications? What challenges are you having “herding the cats”? America needs its regions to lead a national manufacturing renaissance, and it starts with teamwork and sound applications. Let’s do it! As you may know, we have been following the Tech Hubs program closely, and have hosted a few recent conversations here, here, and here on the topic. We also submitted a response to the RFI earlier in the year. Many others are doing good work to help regions prepare. For example, America Work’s Matt Fieldman is leading a series of meetings to educate state MEPs on Tech Hubs and share how different regions are preparing. We want to keep supporting this type of groundwork wherever possible. Share with us topics and challenges that we can elevate to the network! 5.AMCC’s Discussion with NSF Engines Program Team Thanks to EDA BFFs Tori Brown and Nancy Gilbert introducing us, we’ve been talking with NSF’s team working on the Engines and Builder Platform. As you recall, there are a large number of regional consortia that have applied to be a NSF Engine in their region. In other words, this is a federal intervention to accelerate regional research and innovation that America needs (one of the Big 6). The NSF’s Engine application locations are now listed publicly on this map. Try using this map to get connected to Engine applicants to explore collaborative opportunities and let us know how it goes. We expect that NSF sharing these application maps will be a useful tactic other federal agencies can employ to help regions weave together different federal interventions to produce better regional impact. Fellow Community of Practice – RTI’s Build Back Better CoP – appears to be using a similar tactic by mapping all 60 of the Phase 1 finalists. If there is a BBBRC group in your region, try connecting with them to explore collaboration opportunities. Mapping related overlapping regional initiatives is an activity that also relates to AMCC’s ecosystem metrics project so thanks for engaging on this work as per above in your region, let us know how we can assist, and stay tuned for more on these important activities! 6. AMCC Meeting with Connex Marketplace’s Alan Davis We caught up with Alan and his team this week to hear the latest on Connex Marketplace. Nearly half of all states so far appear to be using this solution and many from those states in AMCC are helping with their state’s rollouts. We continue to explore closer collaboration with the Connex team as time goes on. For example, we can see how they can add important value to the ecosystem metrics project and in tackling regional supply chain and workforce needs with manufacturers. Thanks Alan! 7. Webinar on Tech-Based Economic Development (TBED) Metrics by SSTI The Technology-Based Economic Development Community of Practice led by SSTI will host a webinar on June 22nd at 3pm ET on crafting compelling metrics to communicate how TBED can make a difference in your region. Register here. Make sure to check out the webinar and make the most of the broader Community of Practice ecosystem that EDA has been building! 8. Recently discussed federal competitions and program announcements: EDA’s 2023 NOFO for Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs (!) OLDCC 2023 NOFO for the Defense Community Infrastructure Pilot (DCIP) Program OLDCC 2023 NOFO for the Defense Manufacturing Communities Support Program DOE’s State Manufacturing Leadership Program DOE to expand Industrial Assessment Centers (IACs) NSF newly announced Builder Platform to support Engines program DOL’s $15M Critical Sector Job Quality program for workforce training on clean energy transition DOE’s $99.5M Funding Opportunity to Accelerate Electrification of Transportation Sector USDA’s ERA and PACE programs to Advance Clean Energy in Rural America 9. AMCC Roadshow Planning Updates The work continues! More trips coming later in the year to VA, OH, PA IL, NC, GA, FL, CA, WA and more! If you haven’t done so already, please send me and David a message to discuss organizing a visit. AND, if you live in or have interests in regions we are visiting, tell us! As much as possible, we want to bring as many resources to bear to make the most good in all these regions – Reach out if you want to be part of a trip. 10. Selected Research from Andrew Reamer with the Industry Studies Association, and other sources (Thanks David!): Here’s a Congressional Research Service brief on the global context of CHIPS, and how other nations are responding to secure supply of semiconductors. Here are two White House fact sheets released recently. The first is on workforce initiatives current and upcoming. The second is an update on state-by-state projects resulting from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. EPA announces a significant investment to clean up brownfield sites in Ohio, which is one issue that I worked on during my time at EPA. Here’s a good research article by the Federation of American Scientists on improving access to capital in communities by expanding SBA’s secondary market capacity. |