From the Executive Director's Desk

The High Impact Technology Exchange (HI-TEC) conference is sponsored by a number of NSF ATE Centers, and will be held July 26-29 at the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate. FLATE and SpaceTEC are sponsoring a Florida welcome session featuring a broad array of high technology sectors with a panel of industry professionals from around the state. Additionally all Florida community and/or state colleges attending the conference will be displaying information on various high-tech programs available at each of the individual colleges, and will be a great opportunity to collaborate with our industry partners to showcase our signature programs to technician educators from across the country. In addition to this special session, there are many pre-conference tours, workshops, regular conference sessions as well as a technology showcase.

Florida faculty in high technology programs including –biotechnology, aerospace, optics and photonics, advanced manufacturing, nano and micro technologies, alternative and renewable energy systems, information technology, and others- have the opportunity to apply for a fellowship from FLATE. The deadline to apply has been extended to May 15. The fellowship includes full conference registration plus 2 nights at the conference hotel. Information can be found on the FLATE website (http://www.fl-ate.org/). I look forward to seeing many of you there.

On another note, thank you all for your ideas and suggestions in our recent FLATE Focus survey. You will experience some changes reflecting stakeholder input in this and future issues. We appreciate all of your input, and hope everyone feels free to send us comments and suggestions either as remarks on the FLATE Focus newsletter blog, or via email at flate@fl-ate.org.

Congratulations also to all graduating students, including the CASS students graduating from the HCC Engineering Technology program. In this issue, you can learn more about this group, their studies, their preparation for summer internships, and plans for the future in their home countries in Central and South America. Read about our upcoming summer teacher camp, and if you are a teacher please consider joining this free professional development opportunity, or take advantage of other teacher resources highlighted in a video you can access from this newsletter. If you missed the ET Forum, a few highlights are captured on the sidebar.