University Programs

Innovation is the heart of engineering. Micron partners with universities around the globe in support of programs and people that inspire the next generation of technology innovators and leaders. Our grants support student experiences, faculty researchers and programs to help create pathways for underrepresented students to achieve their aspirations in engineering. Additionally, our Advancing Curiosity grants further our desire to positively impact technology for all by using AI and data.

In 2020, we awarded more than $3M in grant to universities all over the world, including some of the following highlights:

Micron Academy for Inclusive Leadership

Micron worked with more than 60 universities worldwide during the pandemic and helped support students at many of these universities. Funding included launching the Micron Academy for Inclusive Leadership as a student-led initiative to address social injustice, strengthen leadership skills and build a sense of community for underrepresented students.

Data Science for Social Good

Another way that Micron is promoting social justice in the world is by supporting the eScience Institute’s Data Science for the Social Good program at the University of Washington. The program brings interdisciplinary teams of graduate students across the country together with in-house data scientists to tackle projects that can benefit society.

The Advancing Curiosity Award, funded by the Micron Foundation, supports research institutions and nonprofits that are investigating how artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning will improve our lives while addressing ethical issues, security and privacy protocols. The funding provided financial support and stipends to eight Micron fellows and leadership from data scientists from the eScience Institute.

This summer, two teams spent 10 weeks focused on developing new methods for detecting minority vote dilution (manipulation of school, city, county and other district boundaries that weakens the voting strength of minority voters) and creating an open tool to identify coronavirus disinformation risk on news websites.

UV Robot Challenge

Over the summer and fall, a cross-functional Micron team led a public engineering design challenge to create a more accessible and effective robotic solution for disinfecting rooms with ultraviolet light. More than 70 designs were submitted from around the globe, a striking success and testament to the effort spearheaded by Micron’s technical project team.

Micron provided $10,000 to each of the seven university teams that participated in the UV Robot Challenge: The universities that participated were Georgia Tech, Boise State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, National University of Singapore, University of Texas-Austin, Tokyo Institute of Technology and IIT-Delhi.