Dream It Do It Advanced Manufacturing Program

Dear Educators and Community Based Partners:

You are extremely important partners in building and maintaining a strong regional economy. The work you do on a daily basis is transformative and goes beyond providing a quality education to students in our region. The work you do it is imperative to building a strong workforce now and into future. It is the students that you engage with and educate, that will grow our economy and help our companies remain competitive. The work you do as an educator in preparing our regions workforce contributes to a manufacturing economic engine that produces 26.8 billion dollars in annual shipments from the five counties of Western New York. It is important to note that manufacturing brings new dollars into our economy, as we ship products all over the United States and throughout the world. Those new dollars get put into our regional economy in a variety of ways. For example, manufacturers contribute 4.609 billion dollars to our regional economy in compensation and benefits to our employees. Our schools and community-based partners are essential to maintaining a strong regional manufacturing economy and continued growth in this sector.

At the core of the mission of the Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier and our Dream It Do It program, is building strong regional collaborations with our educational and community-based partners.

Two of the seven core goals that are part of the mission of the Manufacturers Association are the following:

We identify the training needs of our members and partner with educational and workforce development institutions to satisfy the workforce needs of manufacturers.
We see our youth as the most valuable resource to our region and seek to develop them into a continuous pipeline of talent within advanced manufacturing.

To meet these goals, the Manufacturers Association started Dream It Do It in our region in 2009 as a platform through which we have fostered over 60,000 interactions with students, teachers, counselors and administrators. We look forward to working with you to build on that momentum as we launch a redesigned version of the initiative, titled the Dream It Do It Advanced Manufacturing Program. The Dream It Do It Advanced Manufacturing Program (DIDIAMP) has been built and informed by students, teachers, counselors, school principals, funders and manufacturers in our region. DIDIAMP is about connecting, engaging, encriching, challenging and rewarding students on their way to manufacturing career pathways. As part of the implementation of the DIDIAMP we are using a technology platform called Tallo. Tallo is provided at no cost to schools and students. The Tallo platform brings talent, employers, colleges, students and organizations together within a virtual hub of connectivity and resources. In addition we have addressed questions regarding New York State Education law 2-D compliancy. Dream It Do It Western New York has entered a New York State Education Law 2-D compliant agreement with Erie 2 – Chautauqua, Cattaraugus BOCES. This agreement enables DIDIWNY to utilize Tallo as we work with students in Erie 2 BOCES. Notably Ulster BOCES is also working with Tallo to utilize the platform in their region. We are interested in further discussion with you regarding the implementation of DIDIAMP, opportunities to work with your team and continuing our efforts to present career pathways in manufacturing to students in the region.

Attached please find the following information regarding DIDIAMP:

Dream It Do It Advanced Manufacturing Program Slide Deck
Tallo Slide Deck

In addition to sharing some information with you we are also writing to invite you, your team and your students to participate in some upcoming events:

Administrator, Teacher, Counselor Manufacturing Camps (adults)

Date: June 29-30, 2023

Time: 9am-1pm

Location: Manufacturing Technology Institute, Jamestown

Click Here to Register

Date: July 18-19, 2023

Time: 9am-1pm

Location: PTECH, Dunkirk

Click Here to Register

Girls in Manufacturing (students grades 5-12)

Date: July 20, 2023

Time: 9am-1pm