With the departure of longtime Tech Collective executive director Katherine O'Dea, board members are looking to redefine the group's mission and raise its profile.

The association, which emerged as a result of a strategic expansion and restructuring of the Rhode Island Technology Council, has in recent years focused on hosting tech-industry networking events and administering state and federal work force training grants to Rhode Island companies, [board chairman and Atrion CEO Tim] Hebert said.

It will begin offering its members educational programming, perhaps in partnership with institutions such as Bryant University and Roger Williams University, he said.

The Tech Collective also will seek to expand into work force development at every level of Rhode Island’s educational system, from kindergarten through college, he said.

And the association wants to assume a stronger advocacy role for Rhode Island’s burgeoning informational technology and biotechnology sectors, Hebert said.

“The EDC and BIF are really the spark or the catalyst for innovation in the state, and I look to the Tech Collective to kind of become the fuel that keeps those things going,” he said.