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| Clint Cole, a professor at WSU, co-founded Digilent to help engineering students with hands-on learning. |
It’s one thing to learn from a
textbook or a chalkboard. It’s another, much better, approach to learn by doing
it yourself.
That was the philosophy Washington
State University electrical engineering professors Clint Cole and Gene Apperson
had in mind 10 years ago when they started Digilent to market a teaching aid
they’d developed.
They’ve had a busy decade since
then.
Digilent makes field programmable
gate array boards, microcontrollers and similar devices to teach computer
science and electrical engineering students the principles of digital circuit
design and programming.
The company says its boards often
cost less than a textbook, and to make education budgets stretch even further,
Digilent posts educational materials, research, documentation and designs on
its website for free use, asking only that it be credited.
Digilent partners with leading
technology firms that provide donated or low-cost components to the firm.
“Students benefit because they get the latest technologies for low costs,” the
company’s website says. “Alliance partners benefit because they get their
technologies in front of students who are tomorrow’s engineers. Digilent
benefits because they fulfill their goal of making better engineers.”
The formula seems to be working.
Diligent says its products can be found in more than 1,000 universities in 70
countries; in addition, it now has offices in Romania, China and Taiwan. The
company also provides manufacturing services to technology businesses.
Cole and Apperson have
considerable experience in technology; Cole co-founded Heartstream, while
Apperson worked for Microsoft and Boeing. Their aim for Digilent: teach the
students who will be tomorrow’s tech leaders. From the Digilent website: “By
making the latest digital technologies understandable and available to all,
Digilent removes existing barriers, namely cost, to technological development.
Digilent products and services make the next generation more tech savvy,
promoting faster and further technological advances."
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