Compitencies (original) (raw)
What’s the ComPITence Project?
ComPITence helps professors teach students the tools to enter the field of public interest technology, and helps students and those already in the field to develop PIT skills and access PIT jobs, materials and organizations.
To do that, our team of experts from the tech industry, non-profits, and academia, created a list of academic competencies–reflecting the values, knowledge, skills and behaviors a public interest technologist needs. We encourage instructors to adopt these competencies in course and curricular design. We also created a toolkit with of syllabi, books and job hunt information to help people learn about the field. This work is supported by funding from the Public Interest Tech University Network (PIT-UN) and is freely available to any instructor interested in infusing PIT in their courses.
How we got here?
Over the course of 2024, eighteen collaborators from academia, industry, and the nonprofit sector came together to create the ComPITencies. This process kicked off with a series of in-person workshops, hosted by Fordham University (NY, NY) in January, 2024. The collaborators represent the facets of the PIT ecosystem including: PIT-UN faculty from computer science, communications, operations research, human computer interaction, law and social work, computer scientists and business development specialists from IBM, and representatives from our responsible tech advocacy partner, All Tech Is Human. Design partner, SOUR, delivered workshops focused on inclusive design and competency development. Next smaller working groups met virtually between January and July to formulate their recommendations for PIT competencies, teaching and curricular materials. The next in-person meeting in July, 2024 synthesized the competency recommendations, where we dove into the values, knowledge, skills and behaviors that a competent Public Interest Technologist would demonstrate. Lastly, the group met virtually in September 2024 to finalize the materials you see here.
PiT Core Competencies
A competency is defined as “mastery of learning by students through their demonstration of knowledge, attitudes, values, skills, and behaviors” (Gervais, 2016). Sometimes called learning goals or learning objectives, competencies reflect student’s learning and development during their time with us in higher education. The foundation of competency-based education linking theory to practice and providing students with dynamic opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge skills and understanding.
Apply Systems Thinking to Problem-Solving:
Demonstrate Ethical Decision-Making:
Design for Equity & Inclusion:
Engage the community meaningfully:
Demonstrate Interdisciplinarity:
Value Continuous Learning & Dynamism of Technology:
Understand and Integrate Transparency and Accountability:
Demonstrate PIT Technological Intuition:
Understand and Champion the Public Interest:
Toolkit
Case Studies
Coming soon!
Sample Assessments
Coming soon!
The Project Team
Dr. Lauri Goldkind
Professor of Graduate School of Social Service at Fordham University
Dr. Jesse Baldwin-Philippi
Associate Professor in the Communications & Media Studies Department at Fordham University
Dr. Laura Bingham
Practice Professor of Law at Temple University Institute of Law
Dr. Djallel Bouneffouf
Senior Research Scientist at IBM
Rachael Dietkus
Digital Services Expert at United States Digital Services (USDS)
Dr. Becky Duane
Business Development Executive at IBM
Dr. Diana Freed
Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Data Science at Brown University
Rebekah Tweed
Executive Director at All Tech is Human
Dr. Erhardt Graeff
Associate Professor of Social & Computer Science Olin College of Engineering
Dr. Renata Konrad
Associate Professor of Operations and Industrial Engineering in the Foisie School of Business at Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Dr. Raj Korpan
Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY)
Fred Lederer
Chancellor Professor of Law at William Mary Law School
Dr. Miao Liu
Research Scientist at IBM
Manish Nagireddy
IBM Researcher at the MIT Watson AI Lab
Arushi Saxena
White House Presidential Innovation Fellow
IN MEMORIAM
Dr. Kevin Harris
Program Chair of Computational & Information Sciences at Stillman College
Supporters
The Public Interest Technology University Network’s Challenge grants are funded through the support of the Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Mastercard Impact Fund with support from Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, the Raikes Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and the Siegel Family Endowment. The Network Challenge is a project of the New Venture Fund (NVF), a 501(c)(3) public charity that supports innovative and effective public interest projects.