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Happy New Year! We have refreshed both our newsletter, which has gone bimonthly, and our website. We hope you find the Resources (sourced from our members and grantees), Bulletin (PIT-UN updates), Pulse (expert opinion pieces), and Pipeline (student-focused) useful in your PIT work. You can expect to see more opinion pieces from members and other PIT experts, deep dives into the PIT-UN work taking place on campuses across the country, and much more reporting and analysis from the field. (Ask me about how to contribute to any of our next five issues, on topics ranging from data science and AI to climate tech.)
Convening Recap
We hope everyone enjoyed our fourth annual convening and hearing from and sharing thoughts with PIT practitioners and fellow Network members. Relive the event. Expect to read updates from PIT-UN and Boston University, our 2023 convening hosts, as the “Partnership for Impact” event experience takes shape.
Technologist Code of Ethics Roundtables
In Fall 2022, PIT-UN in partnership with the Digital Impact and Governance Initiative roundtable discussions regarding a technologist code of ethics. We hope that if it is drafted with care in an inclusive and multistakeholder process, this code can help to transform the underlying values of global technical innovation toward people-centric development and design. By intentionally identifying spaces where technologists work and learn, implementers would reconceptualize our digital future in a way that does not come at the cost of privacy and human rights. Host institutions of the roundtables were Cleveland State University, CEPI FGV Direito-Sao Paulo, Stillman College, and the University of Edinburgh. More to come in our March issue.
Welcome to the PIT–UN Faculty Fellow
A hearty welcome to our first faculty fellow, Sylvester Johnson, someone you might already know as a colleague, associate vice provost of public interest technology and founding director of the Virginia Tech Center for Humanities, and tour de force in strengthening the field. In his position as associate vice provost of PIT, Sylvester leads PIT strategies and helps deepen Virginia Tech’s engagement with policy, human rights, and civil liberties organizations to ensure the ethical governance of technology. Read about what he has in store in this new role.
The Best is Yet to Come
Recently, PIT-UN announced the 2022 Network Challenge Grantees. The 2021 grant projects are set to close in summer 2023. Here’s a preview of how they’ve progressed thus far:
- Increased the entry points to PIT careers for students in key areas with stackable degree completion pathways with the development of one graduate, one undergraduate, and four microcredential certificate programs.
- Increased hands-on learning opportunities through expand data collection and aggregation in three projects,
- Produced three courses published under open educational resource guidelines.
- Expanded experiential learning opportunities (internships, apprenticeships, clinics, and labs) in 10 projects.
- Expanded data analytic capabilities with the development of data tools in four projects that can be used by PIT-UN members.
- Increased scalability and replicability with the production by six projects of PIT guidebooks and training manuals.
- Developed data tools in four other projects to be used in PIT projects.
Brenda Mora Perea
