The New Economy Collaborative pushes for robotics jobs in Southwestern Pennsylvania

Change comes in both words and deeds – and that’s Southwestern Pennsylvania’s economic development approach. 

Western Pennsylvania’s economic stewards have a vehicle in the New Economy Collaborative (NEC) of Southwestern Pennsylvania, a public-private partnership created to administer the $62.7 million Build Back Better grant from the federal government announced back in 2022.

The big goal of the project? Help Pennsylvanians transition into jobs expected to grow, and goad the state’s manufacturing businesses into investing.

Big regional executives have shaped strategy. Prominent federal leaders have visited. The first waves of beneficiaries of the programs backed by the funds have graduated. 

Halfway through the project timeline, the Allegheny Conference-housed NEC is launching a marketing campaign to reach more Pennsylvanians — and Technical.ly is playing a role, too.

At start, NEC is launching an updated website.

The site will be a general clearinghouse of opportunities. For insiders curious about how the program works in detail, those grants’ deeds are playing out across five projects:

• SME Robotics Adoption, led by Catalyst Connection: A $4.8 million initiative to enhance regional competitiveness by integrating Pennsylvania’s robotics innovations into small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across various industries, with a focus on urban and rural areas.
• Robotics Manufacturing Hub, led by the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute: A $14.2 million project aimed at de-risking robotics adoption in SMEs, establishing regional Innovation Accelerators and strengthening manufacturing resilience and global competitiveness.
• Expanded Pathways to New Economy Careers, led by Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission: A $24.8 million effort to create a coordinated upskilling system, offering non-traditional training options that evolve with industry needs, fostering a robust robotics and autonomous career ecosystem.
• The Robotics Factory, led by Innovation Works: A $12 million grant to bolster Pittsburgh’s robotics ecosystem by supporting startups through seed funding and scaling up manufacturing, positioning the region as a global robotics leader.
• Expanded Pathways to Entrepreneurship, led by InnovatePGH: A $6.9 million program to increase minority and women-owned business participation in the robotics industry, offering academic fellowships and entrepreneurial training to underrepresented populations.

Boosters boast that their strength is funding existing entities, so credible work can get done quickly. Each has pushed out examples of their work. Now, they’re aiming to grow the work faster.

To do that, the NEC is kicking off this marketing campaign that will run the remaining two years of the grant, into late 2026. The purpose of that program is to amplify the projects’ success stories to encourage others to participate. 

This is where Technical.ly will play a big role. Over the next few months, our newsroom will profile a series of Western Pennsylvania residents who have benefited from the programs to join advanced manufacturing roles. That sort of coverage — like the one we published this week — is well within our editorial strengths and priorities, and so it fit neatly with our journalistic approach. 

From there, the marketing team that enlisted us — whip-smart digital marketer Maddi Love and her team, as well as Warhol Creative — will take those and other people stories to market on social and in video to broaden the narrative.

The goal: That more residents benefit from the program. The thought: Deeds have started, now get the stories out — and that will change the narrative.