NJIT President Speaks on Innovation Goals and Receives Business Award

NJIT President Joel S. Bloom joined a panel discussion about statewide innovation, and received an award for public service, at the New Jersey Business and Industry Association's virtual Public Policy Forum on December 1.

The panel, "The Modern Innovation State: Challenges and Solutions for Driving Innovation in the Garden State," also included former NJIT Associate Vice President Judith Sheft who is now executive director at the New Jersey Commission on Science, Innovation and Technology; Princeton University Vice Dean for Innovation Rodney Priestly; N.J. State Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald; and the association's Chief Government Affairs Officer Chrissy Buteas.

"As a STEM university, we need the best and the brightest," Bloom said. Opening NJIT's Albert Dorman Honors College 25 years ago and bolstering the university's efforts to hire top faculty helps attract elite students who might otherwise look for an out-of-state or private university, he said.

Moreover, "That new talent and those students are driving the growth of NJIT in many areas including diversity," Bloom continued. NJIT's Center for Pre-College Programs has helped blaze a path, he noted, for under-represented and female students to stand out among the Highlander population.

Now, Bloom said, the state's innovation stakeholders must keep pressing forward by increasing cooperation and funding among academia, businesses, government and the military. "We must network the ecosystems … We've talked  about it for years here in the State of New Jersey," he observed.

He cited success stories such as NJIT student-led startup OculoMotor and the university's ongoing work with the U.S. Army base at Picatinny Arsenal. However, he said, "New Jersey is lacking the kind of critical infrastructure for innovation that we see prevalent in other states. … We need a plan, we need funding and we need the right people at the table."

Bloom said NJIT continues to do its part with the highly successful Office of Research, along with the university-owned New Jersey Innovation Institute and its VentureLink arm. New facilities also help, with the student population growing from about 8,000 in 2012, when there was a substantial fundraising bond issue, to almost 12,000 now.

Looking forward, "We have to be intentional about being optimistic. We have the luxury of seeing 12,000 of those optimistic young men and women on our campus," Bloom said. Despite the COVID pandemic, "We do not lose our optimism."

NJBIA's Buteas said that companies statewide support such desires. "We want to be a part of the conversation, but more importantly a part of the solution. So we are leaning into this conversation very aggressively," she stated.

The association gave Bloom its Leonard C. Johnson Award for Public Service. “Because of Dr. Bloom’s leadership, we were able to be a major part of the much-needed postsecondary education grant campaign that the council undertook as a result of NJBIA research,” Association President and CEO Michele Siekerka said. "His career includes legacy changes to the academic system that have had a profound impact on how curriculum is delivered and workplace skills are developed."