Herff College of Engineering Welcomes Memphis Mayor Paul Young for conversation about future of engineering and workforce development
June 25, 2026
The Herff College of Engineering hosted Memphis Mayor Paul Young for a tour and open discussion with faculty and staff members on Wednesday, June 24.
Herff College of Engineering Dean Okenwa Okoli welcomed Young by sharing his vision for Memphis and the college's role in the city.
"When I arrived here in 2023, I quickly recognized the incredible potential of this city and some of the challenges facing our community, including youth engagement and generational poverty... The challenge is connecting talent to opportunity. At Herff, we want young people across Memphis to understand that the same problem-solving abilities and technical skills they possess today can become the foundation for a rewarding career. With the right education, mentorship and support, many of our graduates move into careers that earn six-figure salaries within a few short years while contributing positively to their families, their community and the economy. At the Herff College of Engineering, our mission is to help make that connection," Okoli said.
Young had the chance to meet some of those young people in person, stopping by the West Tennessee STEM Hub's Bridges to Engineering event at Herff's ERIC building. Addressing a room full of middle school students and business partners, Young, who holds a degree in electrical engineering, told the children, "As mayor, you have to deal with a lot of problems and, when you have an engineering degree, you learn how to think about solving problems in a very linear way, meaning you go step-by-step-by-step to solve whatever issue you're dealing with. It's something that I carry with me through all of the things that I'm doing. So, as you all continue to learn and figure out what you want to do as you grow up, make sure you think about engineering as an opportunity because it is a field where you can learn a lot and make a really good living."
Much of the open discussion between Young and the chairs of Herff's departments centered on artificial intelligence and the role that the Polytechnic@UofM, which now offers a Bachelor of Applied Science (BAS) in Applied AI, can play in developing Memphis' AI workforce.
"I think there's definitely a need for upscaling and training," Young said. "It's not enough for us to just fight progress and say, 'No data centers. No AI.' These things are not coming. They are here. The reality is that the world is shifting and if our people in Memphis don't find a way to adjust to the shift that's taking place, then we're going to be left behind. I want our community to not fear AI and the concern about it taking our jobs...How can we use AI to create more jobs?"
Memphis is now home to xAI, Anthropic/Claude and Google, companies Young said are spending billions of dollars in the Greater Memphis Area.
"Our conversation with them has been, 'We need y'all to invest in training our young people. Invest in organizations, but we should also be telling them to invest with you all. Put some money into training programs that young people are going to be able to benefit from," Young said.
The Polytechnic@UofM has already made AI a center of its focus as it prepares to welcome its first BAS students in the Fall 2026 semester. Along with the BAS degree in applied AI, the Polytechnic@UofM offers an "AI for All" minor, open to any student, and has hired Dr. William Duffy as its new director of applied AI.
"As the mayor rightly pointed out, AI is here to stay...The data centers are here. All we need to now do is to make sure that those data centers contribute to the greatness of Memphis and we can easily do that through the Polytechnic and workforce development. And the more people who come in through our workforce development education system, the more of them are going to be readily employed within those AI centers and across the technology field throughout the state of Tennessee," Okoli said.
But AI isn't the only engineering and technological advancement happening in Memphis. Young described how Memphis is working to become a "smart city," or an urban area that integrates digital technologies, data analytics and the Internet of Things into its infrastructure to optimize city operations and reduce resource consumption.
"We've been working with our division of engineering and our IT division and we've installed over 500 of these HD-quality cameras at our intersection all throughout the city of Memphis that are connected to our fiber network. If you go to our real-time crime center and see how they're using it in real-time, they're solving crimes and they have eyes on the streets. We actually have cameras that are installed on 10 of our garbage trucks that drive all throughout the city. They're scanning the ground and looking for potholes. It's completing automatic tickets in our 311 system and we're going out and filling those potholes based on that innovation," Young said.
The mayor said the next step in that camera technology could come in identifying parking spaces in Downtown Memphis.
"We're trying to think of ways that we can use this technology not just for public safety but to improve everyday life," Young said.
Dr. Gary Bowlin, chair of Herff's Department of Biomedical Engineering, emphasized the importance of relationships between the department and medical schools in the city.
"This is our pipeline. We need to invest in that and figure out our ways in the medical field, where there's a dire need for that training," Bowlin said.
Young said one of those biomedical engineering relationships could come between Herff's department and the University of Tennessee's Health Science Center's new $350 million medical school.
"They want to train the doctors for the state of Tennessee and, obviously, my goal is to make sure that, as they're here, we can keep them here. And if there's a way to build a stronger pipeline between the University of Memphis and what they're doing at UT or the College of Health Sciences and all the other institutions, I think we should do that," Young said.
Dr. Ali Fatemi, chair of Herff's department of mechanical engineering, raised the need for similar partnerships with Memphis industries.
"Memphis being a manufacturing-intensive city, we have a lot of activities going on at the college with regard to manufacturing and it's actually growing very rapidly...But one thing I've seen missing is that connection with business. With all of that manufacturing in the city, there is not as strong a connection as there could be between the manufacturers and the college. So, I hope that's one thing your office can help bring about," Fatemi said.
Young acknowledged the importance of that relationship and said one area where such a partnership could be highlighted is the development of AI infrastructure.
"We in Memphis are actually building our own stake as a city that is building the infrastructure that will drive AI moving forward," Young said, mentioning the expansion of Hyosung HICO, a South Korean company based in Memphis that produces high-voltage electrical transformers for the American power grid, and AAON, a company that moved to Memphis from Oklahoma that builds systems that cool the towers that go into AI data centers.
"They were actually asking me for partnerships and how they can connect because they want to make sure that they are training up the people that have the skills. So, I think that there's a ripe group of companies that actually need the partnership with you all to achieve their economic goals, which are our economic goals," Young said.
As the mayor left Herff, Okoli felt confident about the college's potential partnerships with the City of Memphis.
"Conversations start, ideas roll. They get onto the drawing board and we start making new things. City government working with a university—nothing more pleasant than that, nothing more beautiful than that because we're going to make great things. When we start going from education into partnerships with the city government, it means that we're going to be able to effect positive changes in the city of Memphis," Okoli said.