Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and GlobalFoundries will host the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) 2.0 Regional Meeting on April 24.

Manufacturers, policy makers, academics, and all other stakeholders in the regional and national manufacturing ecosystem are invited to attend. Attendees will have the opportunity to inform national policy recommendations for President Barack Obama by assessing the region’s strengths and challenges in supporting an advanced manufacturing ecosystem. It is one of several regional meetings taking place across the country to gather input from regional stakeholders, generate ideas, and identify examples of innovative strategies for recommendations to the President in strengthening U.S. manufacturing competitiveness.

The AMP 2.0 Regional Meeting will take place from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 24, in the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) on the Rensselaer campus.

See the registration details and the full meeting agenda at: http://amp.rpi.edu/

Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson and Ajit Manocha, formerly CEO and currently senior advisor to GlobalFoundries, both serve on the AMP 2.0 Steering Committee. Jackson and Manocha will give remarks to open the Regional Meeting.

Michael Molnar, chief manufacturing officer of the U.S. Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and director of the Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office (AMNPO), will also speak at the meeting.

“For nearly 200 years, Rensselaer has been at the forefront of engineering, science, and technology. Today, our faculty and students are working at the leading edge of advanced manufacturing, a field with a great potential to help invigorate industry and the economy of our nation,” President Jackson said. “The path forward is not simple, and requires the engagement and input from academia, the private sector, and government. AMP 2.0 seeks to gather the best ideas from around the country for how to accomplish this shared goal of securing the leadership of the United States in advanced manufacturing.”

President Obama created the AMP in 2011 to help revitalize the national manufacturing sector, create high-quality manufacturing jobs, and enhance America’s global competitiveness. In 2013, he launched AMP 2.0 and appointed a new Steering Committee. Comprised of leaders from industry, academia, and labor, the new Steering Committee was charged with implementing the initial Steering Committee’s previous recommendations as well as identifying new strategies for securing the nation’s competitive advantage in transformative early-stage technologies.

The AMP 2.0 Steering Committee functions as a working group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), of which President Jackson is a member. In addition to being a member of PCAST, she co-chairs the President’s Innovation and Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC). As co-chair of PITAC, President Jackson helped lead the 2011 Report to the President on Ensuring American Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing. This report provided recommendations for revitalizing the nation’s leadership in advanced manufacturing.  In response to this report, President Obama created the AMP.