This report from Katharine Lusk and Azer Bestravos of Boston University evaluates of the state of the field across the 43 academic institutions that make up the Public Interest Technology University Network as of the summer of 2021, providing insight into the ways in which PIT-UN members are investing in its five priority areas, and sheds light on the state of the field more generally.
It examines the maturity of PIT efforts across members, their priorities related to students, faculty and practitioners — including institutional infrastructure — as well barriers to growth. The data also begin to shed light on the pathways available to institutions in the earlier stages of PIT growth as they seek to foster community, align around a shared vision, and make preliminary investments. Finally, it wades into the ongoing debate about what encompasses “public interest technology” and provides some potential for clarity, based on the input of members.
Parent organization: Boston University Initiative on Cities
A multi-disciplinary research network linking philosophers, social scientists, computer scientists, legal scholars, and technologists.
The Online Deliberation Platform is a video discussion platform for groups of 8-15 people.
The Journal of Deliberative Democracy (formerly the Journal of Public Deliberation) is an open access journal publishing articles that shape the course of scholarship on deliberative democracy.
We aim to reframe the conversation about technology and labor towards issues of power, inequality, and social justice, and incorporate themes of feminism, anti-racism, and transnationalism.
The Public Technology Leadership Collaborative (PTLC) is a new peer learning collective of scholars, researchers, and government leaders committed to addressing the social and cultural implications of data and technology.