Inventors play a critical role in fostering innovation, strengthening economies, and addressing everyday problems and grand challenges around the world.
Recognizing the critical role inventors play in society, AAAS and The Lemelson Foundation have partnered to highlight the human face of the modern invention through the AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassadors Program.
Over the past four years, the AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassadors Program has built a community of 32 Invention Ambassadors who are empowered to raise awareness of the global impact of invention.
Dr Tyrone Grandison, Executive Director of the Data-Driven Foundation, has been named an AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador for 2018-2019.
This program provides a platform for Dr Grandison to:
Inspire a new and diverse generation of inventors dedicated to solving difficult global challenges
Inform on the components needed to create inventions that sustainably solve global problems
Influence policy makers, thought leaders & public.
About Dr. Grandison
Dr. Tyrone W A Grandison is the Founder of The Data-Driven Institute, which is a public health non-profit that helps communities and businesses transform raw data into insights, products, policy, and application. Dr Grandison is also a 2018 Zhi-Xing Eisenhower Fellow. Dr. Grandison was the first-ever Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Dr. Grandison also advises the Government of Jamaica on their Information Technology strategy – as a member of the National Information and Communications Technology Advisory Council (2016-18). He was the Deputy Chief Data Officer (dCDO) at the US Department of Commerce (2015-16), where he co-founded the Commerce Data Service – a data startup within the Department that supported its twelve bureaus – and led the successful rollout of its first 15 products. He was also a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow (2014-15) working with the US Department of Labor and the US CENSUS Bureau on their data and API (application programming interface) initiatives.
Dr. Grandison’s career started as a software engineer in Jamaica. He attended Jamaica College from 1987 to 1994, received a B.Sc. degree in Computer Studies (Computer Science and Economics) from the University of the West Indies in 1997, a M.Sc. degree in Software Engineering in 1998 and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine in London (2003). Dr. Grandison also holds an Executive Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the IBM Academy of Education.
About the AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and The Lemelson Foundation have partnered to create the AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassadors Program designed to celebrate and highlight the importance of invention and inventors.
Through our partnership, we strive to enrich a fresh and diverse generation of young inventors worldwide by expanding global understanding of the role of invention in creating new products, building new intuitive businesses, and cultivating the importance of invention education to foster innovation.
Understanding the need for invention, the knowledge that invention helps to create and the dual and complementary roles of invention and innovation for 21st century public problem solving is critical!
Every aspect of our problem solving requirements must be considered and acted upon including talent creation; the skill-set, aspirations and inspiration from our inventors; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) basic research; and the innovation ecosystem. Meet the team.