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By: Daily Record Staff May 11, 2022

The University of Maryland Tuesday dedicated the new E.A. Fernandez IDEA (Innovate, Design and Engineer for America) Factory, designed to foster technology innovations and advances through collaboration across engineering, the arts, business and science.

The A. James Clark School of Engineering’s new 60,000-square-foot building is the university’s only facility funded entirely by private philanthropy.

Located next to the university’s Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building, the IDEA Factory features key research and student programs and activities including:

The building is named for Emilio Fernandez, a 1969 Maryland engineering alum, entrepreneur and inventor who holds dozens of patents, including one which defined e-reading devices and is the most-cited U.S. patent ever issued.

Many of these patents were co-invented with his friend, business partner and fellow classmate Angel Bezos. Their inventions and their company, Pulse Electronics, transformed railroad operations. The building’s cornerstone gift came from the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation’s Building Together: An Investment for Maryland in 2017.

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