NextFlex News – January 2024

Dear Members and Friends,

Since its formation in 2015, the NextFlex community of technologists, educators, problem solvers and manufacturers have come together to collectively facilitate hybrid electronics innovation, narrow the advanced manufacturing workforce gap and promote long standing electronics manufacturing ecosystems. To address our mission of furthering advanced manufacturing in the United States, we developed the NextFlex Learning Portfolio. The Learning Portfolio focuses on advanced manufacturing training through awareness building, recruitment, and skill building for the advanced manufacturing sector and hybrid electronics (HE) community. Current target audiences include K-12 students, transitioning military service members, students engaged in technical training, university students, and the incumbent workforce.

We are currently undergoing a strategic planning process which will inform the future efforts of the NextFlex Learning Portfolio. This effort will enable us to stay competitive and keep up with current technology and training trends. Strategic planning is more than just a task for the leadership team; it’s a collaborative effort that involves everyone connected to HE. Your insights into your advanced manufacturing workforce challenges and efforts are invaluable in helping us understand what matters most to you and how we can align our goals with your expectations. By participating in our survey, you become a co-creator of our strategic roadmap.

To support this effort, we have created a series of brief surveys to obtain insights from organizations and entities which are not currently part of the NextFlex member community, member organizations interested in strengthening their workforce development efforts, and postsecondary learners to understand their motivations for pursuing advanced manufacturing and STEM education. Each of these surveys will take no more than 10 minutes to complete. NextFlex and our partners at New Growth Group will use this information to inform a landscape analysis of workforce and training needs related to the development and implementation of emerging technologies related to Hybrid Electronics.

We would greatly appreciate your participation in these surveys as it will help us gather information that is critical to the development of our EWD programs.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Dr. Art Wall
Director of Engineering and Fab Operations, Co-Executive Director Pro Tem