By Yassin Ali
In a powerful display of industry–community partnership, engineers and professionals from Texas Instruments (TI) paid a special visit to the ITKAN Innovation Hub in Plano, Texas, spending the day mentoring students, witnessing live robot demonstrations, and opening a direct window into what a career in technology truly looks like. The visit, coordinated in part by Texas Instruments' Business Development Manager for Industrial High Performance Radar, bridged the gap between classroom learning and the professional engineering world.
When the TI team walked through the doors of ITKAN's 24,000-square-foot Innovation Hub, they were greeted by the energy of a community that has spent years building something extraordinary. The day included tours of one of the most ambitious youth robotics spaces in the country, live demonstrations of state-champion machines designed and programmed entirely by ITKAN students, candid Q&A sessions about real careers in tech, and one-on-one mentorship connecting programming, circuit design, and engineering to real-world TI challenges.
“Having them here really brought a new level of energy and enthusiasm into our space,” said Dr. Mohamed Ebeida, Founder & President of ITKAN Institute of Technology. The conversations were substantive, TI professionals engaged students about career paths and engineering disciplines, making the future feel achievable.
Texas Instruments is a listed sponsor of ITKAN Robotics Team 9128 and has a deep commitment to STEM education across North Texas. In TI's most recent United Way campaign, employees raised $8.5 million for United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, mobilizing more than 1,200 volunteers who reached nearly 20,000 students across the region.
For many ITKAN students from underrepresented communities, a visit like this is transformative. Seeing professionals engage with their robots and invest in their futures sends one message: you belong here. It's a reminder that the most powerful curriculum isn't always written in a textbook, sometimes, it walks through your door.