RILE Connect Receives $495,922 SIPA GovGrants Award

RILE Connect — MSU Denver’s statewide STEM ecosystem platform — has been awarded $495,922 through Colorado’s SIPA GovGrants program for a 24-month grant period (January 2026 - December 2027).

RILE Connect is a digital platform for the Colorado STEM Ecosystem that makes STEM pathways visible, navigable, and equitable from classroom to career. It modernizes Colorado’s existing STEM Ecosystem infrastructure by replacing manual workflows with an integrated web platform featuring an organization directory (already covering 323+ organizations across 15 sectors and 9 Colorado regions), an interactive network graph visualization, self-service organization onboarding, AI-powered mentor matching, and ecosystem analytics dashboards.

The project is led by Dr. Ranjidha Rajan (Principal Investigator) with Dr. Daniel Pittman and Dr. Janelle Johnson as Co-Principal Investigators. The grant will support a multi-year build-out of the platform, an AI assistant suite for students and educators, and a planned mobile app — all designed for transparency, accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA), and replicability for other regions.