Building a Nanotechnology Research and Education Ecosystem to Address Global Challenges

Since the beginning of the national nanotechnology initiative in 1990, the U.S. government through several of its agencies has spent over $21 Billion on nanotechnology research and development, and education. The United Nations adopted its Millennium Development Goals in 2001; some of them were poverty alleviation and access to clean drinking water, global health, environmental sustainability, and development. Leveraging its strengths in micro and nanotechnology research, The University of Illinois Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) collaboratory, established in 2001, embarked upon some of these global challenges, by nurturing an innovation-based research and education ecosystem for preparing the next generation workforce and promoting innovation-based entrepreneurship leading to economic development. This talk will provide an overview of these efforts.