Chicago Tribune (Feb. 25) -- In officially announcing that Chicago will house one of the latest public-private innovation institutes, President Barack Obama said he hoped efforts to revitalize America's manufacturing economy would help the country catch up to competitors such as Germany. The Illinois project has been named the Digital Lab for Manufacturing and will be funded with $70 million from the Defense Department plus an additional commitment of $250 million in state and private-sector money and other contributions. The total includes $16 million from the state and up to $10 million from Chicago. UI Labs, the emerging research hub affiliated with the University of Illinois, will manage the digital lab. At the digital lab, UI Labs hopes to employ 80 to 100 people after five years and have an annual operating budget of $20 million to $25 million, said Caralynn Nowinski, interim executive director at UI Labs. Also: Champaign-Urbana News Gazette (White House annnouncement release, Feb. 25), USA Today (Feb. 26), Reuters (Feb. 26), The Associated Press (Feb. 26), Washington Times (Feb. 26), ASEE FirstBell (Feb. 26), Cleveland Plain Dealer (Feb. 26), Chronicle of Higher Education (Feb. 25), Miami Herald (from The Associated Press, Feb. 25), IndustryWeek (Cleveland, Feb. 27). Editor's note: News of the President's announcement ran in more than 500 publications nationwide and internationally.
Related story: Crain's Chicago Business (Feb. 26) -- In a guest editorial, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn said that the new manufacturing institute will serve as an incubator for Illinois' transformation. "I share the president's vision and have taken several actions to make possible this infusion of federal support. At my direction, the state of Illinois embraced DMDI from the start, working closely with UI Labs, the city of Chicago, and many others in the design of the initiative, providing seed money and working with our partners to bring together the many higher-education participants and corporate funders committed to seeing this work," Quinn wrote. "The DMDI is not some elaborate think tank or an ivory tower center devoted to studying business problems in the abstract. It will be a resource for all manufacturers, inventing, analyzing and testing new processes and techniques that will make production more adaptable and efficient. It will help large manufacturers transform their supply chains. It will be an incubator for makers, the people whose invention and toil are the core of our economy."