Public Interest Tech (PiTech) @ Cornell Tech: Year in Review
In 2021 the Public Interest Tech community continued to grow nationally. We brought the public interest lens to our Cornell Tech graduate campus to foster the next generation of innovators, leaders and thinkers who will shape technology toward positive societal outcomes.
PiTech at Cornell Tech consists of three programs (so far!): (1) PiTech Masters studio, (2) Visiting Practitioner's program, and (3) PhD Impact Fellows. Please check out our new website created by our own Christina Ko.
Here are the major milestones each program accomplished this year, and how you can get involved.
PiTech Masters Studio
Since our start in 2013, Cornell Tech has included a unique Studio program in which all of our Master’s students work on a product development project, in multidisciplinary teams, to address real-world challenges posed by external mentors. This year, we expanded the Studio program with a PiTech Studio track, led by Lyel Resner with Naomi Cervantes.
The goal of PiTech studio is twofold:
To provide students with concrete tools for launching and scaling technology-based products and organizations intentionally focused on public interest needs.
To introduce students to the growing and increasingly important role of technology in social change work.
This academic year, PiTech has been fully integrated into the broader Studio program, bringing a public lens to the existing Startup and Bigco initiatives as well.
As we recruit teams for the Spring 2022 semester, student interest has nearly doubled from last year, with 11 teams participating in the PiTech track.
How you can plug in
We regularly ask public interest organizations to share "How Might We?" design challenges for the Studio teams to take on. Please get in touch if you'd like to contribute a challenge.
We also invite our curated network of practitioners to Critique “Crit” sessions three times per semester. Crit sessions are an opportunity for students to receive external feedback and validation about their work. We break the student teams and practitioners into small rooms where teams present, followed by a dialogue with the “Critters”. For the time being, we are hosting Crit sessions over Zoom, which provides us with the unique opportunity to engage with practitioners across the country. Please reach out to naomi.cervantes@cornell.edu if you’re interested in participating.
Visiting Practitioner's Program
This fall we introduced the Visiting Practitioner's Program, recognizing that while Cornell Tech has always engaged practitioners and mentors in our courses and associated crit sessions, we lacked individuals with deep experience in serving the public interest.
Our inaugural cohort of ViPs are all working to ensure that developments in technology can help lead to a more just and prosperous future for everyone. And we are delighted to have them join the Cornell Tech community as advisors and collaborators, and to support them in their own cutting edge work.
We intentionally brought together individuals working on this problem from very different angles, sectors, and roles. From Roxann Stafford reimagining healthy media ecosystems, to Rhonda Allen bringing social and racial justice to the heart of Silicon Valley, to Anjana Rajan using cutting edge cryptography methods to combat human trafficking and white supremacy terrorism, and Oscar Romero pursuing inclusive innovation strategies in the NYC Mayor’s office.
How you can plug in
Stay tuned for capstone write ups from the Visiting Practitioners later in Spring Term. And please nominate future ViP candidates here.
PhD Impact Fellows
This past summer, we launched the inaugural cohort of PiTech PhD Impact Fellows. The fellowship is designed to give Cornell University PhD students in technical fields a structured opportunity to apply their technical expertise to societal needs.
Over the course of the summer, PhD students from technical disciplines embed within non-profit and public sector organizations based in New York. The fellowship provides an opportunity for these students to develop and apply their expertise on behalf of the public interest and in a real-world context. PiTech Fellows work on a specific project that advances the organization’s mission, applying their skills in areas such as: data analysis and machine learning, AI ethics/fairness, user-centered design, privacy and security, and emerging technologies broadly.
Matt Stempeck, formerly at Civic Hall and Microsoft Civic Tech, collaborated to bring the program to life. Our inaugural PhD Impact Fellow placements included:
Yiqing Hua with The Anti-Defamation League: Center on Extremism
Ilan Mandel with Consumer Reports Digital Lab
Briana Vecchione with Blue Ridge Labs @ Robin Hood Foundation
Yiran Zhao working with NYC Coler Hospital
We'll be publishing the Fellows' capstone writeups sharing their work on our website in the weeks ahead.
In preparation for our second PiTech Impact Fellows cohort in summer 2022, Matt has led the curation of a rich portfolio of New-York-based host organizations addressing a range of public concerns from: Public health, including community health, aging in place, and accessibility; Social justice, including food insecurity, criminal justice reform, and economic inequality; Trustworthy media ecosystems, including combatting racism, hate speech and misinformation; Public services, including transit, civic engagement, and childcare; Environmental and climate goals, including urban emissions and conservation.
Thank you to the many incredible public interest organizations who spoke to us, and to everyone who made introductions and referrals to such great organizations on our behalf.
How you can plug in
You can help by spreading the word about the fellowship application to Cornell PhD students.
Anyone can nominate a public interest organization to host a potential PiTech Impact Fellow for the next cycle.
We welcome collaborators who would like to adopt, iterate, or improve upon this concept and work together to expand and extend the spirit of the PIT University Network.
Looking forward
Early in the new year we hope to share information about new additions to our impact fellowship program — one for a postdoc, and a second for a faculty sabbatical.
We will continue to post events and other content on our new website: https://pi.tech.cornell.edu.
Cornell Tech community members interested in staying involved with PiTech initiatives can join the pitech-community channel ofthe Cornell Tech Slack.