USF Research & Innovation and the Florida High Tech Corridor are collaborating to provide $100,000 in seed funding to four new projects through the Early Stage Innovation Fund program. This initiative aims to support innovative ideas that have the potential for commercial or community impact.
The selected projects are led by faculty from USF’s College of Arts & Sciences, College of Behavioral & Community Sciences, and College of Education. They represent efforts across USF’s Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota-Manatee campuses. The projects focus on AI literacy education for K-12 students, training bilingual professionals in education, developing virtual reality learning experiences for youth, and expanding multicultural curricula for social and emotional learning.
“Across our campuses every day, USF faculty are developing creative solutions to society’s biggest challenges,” said Dr. Sylvia Wilson Thomas, USF Vice President for Research & Innovation. “This important work supports the breadth and depth of community engaged, high-impact research at USF. This round of Early-Stage Innovation funding was an opportunity for USFRI and the Corridor to highlight USF researchers’ ingenuity around social sciences, design, and education and student engagement.”
Corridor CEO Paul Sohl described the projects as unique opportunities to apply emerging technologies in ways that benefit the broader community: “The Florida High Tech Corridor launched this seed funding initiative as a means of supporting promising new ideas from University of South Florida faculty and kickstarting research ideas that go on to become larger initiatives. These projects will involve and serve the wider community in unique and meaningful ways, and we’re excited to see the returns from this effort.”
The Early-Stage Innovation Fund was established in 2022 by USF Research & Innovation in partnership with the Florida High Tech Corridor. Its purpose is to support early-stage innovations that could attract industry investment or lead to start-up creation or licensing opportunities. Previous rounds have funded advancements in areas such as artificial intelligence tools, sustainable manufacturing technology, Alzheimer’s research, defense technology, vaccine development, and infection-fighting strategies.
Faculty can request up to $25,000 per project for research expenses related to further development of their innovations.
Details about future funding rounds will be released soon. Additional information is available at www.usf.edu/corridor.
The newly funded projects include:
AI for All: Co-designing a Roadmap to Community-Centered AI Literacy Education (Dr. Fan Yang)
This project will develop a roadmap focused on bringing AI literacy programs into Tampa Bay’s K-12 schools by outlining curriculum guidelines, teacher training programs, resource allocation strategies, and integration methods.
Equipping Bilingual Leaders for Special Education Related Careers (Dr. Matthew Foster)
Aimed at addressing the shortage of bilingual educators, this project seeks to train future multilingual leaders in evidence-based instruction and culturally appropriate practices while involving undergraduate students in hands-on language intervention with young children.
eXploRe a Wonderland of Inquiry (Dr. Lindsay Persohn)
Through collaboration among several USF colleges and centers, this project plans to build a prototype virtual reality application offering interactive spaces where youth can collaborate on solutions to real-world problems.
Social Emotional Curriculum Development for Early Childhood (Dr. AnnMarie Alberton Gunn and Dr. Susan V Bennett)
This initiative intends to create a curriculum that enhances vocabulary as well as social-emotional skills among young students—particularly targeting underserved communities through partnerships with afterschool centers.
