Duke’s longtime partner RTI International is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. RTI was founded 1958 with $500,000 in funding by local businesses and the three North Carolina universities in the Research Triangle region: Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill, and NC State. Today, the nonprofit employs more than 5,000 people spread across offices on four continents, with degrees in more than 250 scientific, technical, and professional disciplines across the social and laboratory sciences, engineering, and international development fields.

As part of their anniversary celebrations, RTI International will be a key co-sponsor of The New Building Blocks of Development conference: they will host both the opening lunch and closing reception at the event, RTI experts across multiple disciplines will be speaking on various panels, and Executive Vice President Paul Weisenfeld will offer opening commentary on the first day of the conference.

Fun fact: In 1961, RTI conducted its first international development project: a rural economic and agricultural statistics survey in Nigeria for USAID. Check out the RTI 60th anniversary website for more interesting stories and photos from their history. And be sure to celebrate with us in November!