Cleveland State University

Career Pipeline and Placement

Internet of things community advisory board, ICAB educational offerings

This expansion proposal builds on the creation of the Internet of Things Community Advisory Board (ICAB) and its subsequent pilot projects from the Year 3 Challenge. Projects include the inaugural TechBox program that exposed minority middle and high school students to different state-of-the-art technologies in the PIT field (drones, coding, smart sensors and manufacturing, augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence/ChatGPT, digital arts), funneled students into Digital Navigator training and summer employment helping address the technological needs of seniors in the community, and extended into a community-based drones program in Hough. This new proposal will expand ICAB membership to recruit a social worker from the target, under-resourced neighborhoods, address the need for training of both faculty and community members when pursuing community-led PIT projects, expand the pilot TechBox program while increasing recruitment for students to train and become employed as Digital Navigators, and also create a pipeline pathway for students and other community residents to enter into PIT degree and certificate tracks at Cleveland State University in conjunction with Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C). We will create several open-source materials including: two evidenced-based educational modules to train faculty and community residents on community-engaged work and collaborations; an open-source TechBox program manual; open-source guidelines for TechBox participants and policies for partnering organizations that include working with minors; a curricular/degree map and implementation roadmap in collaboration with ICAB, Tri-C and the Cleveland State University (CSU) Honors College while exploring digital badges and transfer credits mechanisms toward degree tracks at Tri-C and/or CSU.

Principal Investigator

Kelle DeBoth Foust, Assistant Professor of Health Sciences College of Sciences and Health

Career Pipeline and Placement

The PIT Quantum Computing Training Pipeline

This project is designed to ensure that the Quantum Computing future workforce includes an increased number of Black students, Latinx students, and Female students. Our goal is to provide a diverse student pipeline for over 60% of the Quantum Computing internships at the Cleveland Clinic to be filled by the targeted student group. The program provides both undergraduate and high school students with career exposure, curriculum access, and retention support.

Principal Investigator

Charles McElroy, Assistant Professor, Information Systems

Educational Offerings, Career Pipeline/Placement, Faculty & Institution Building, Strengthening the PIT University Network

Advanced Technology in Society and the Public Interest

The transdisciplinary Advanced Technology in Society and the Public Interest (ATS-PI) involves the disabled community as equal partners and focuses on large questions regarding the future of human-machine technology and humanity.

Principal Investigator

Nicholas Zingale, Associate Professor, Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, and Kelle DeBoth, Assistant Professor, School of Health Sciences

Educational Offerings, Career Pipeline/Placement

Smart City Privacy & Equity Community Awareness & Empowerment

The leading civic data privacy leaders network will collaborate with computer science, social work, and law faculty to deliver a set of model resources for communities to raise awareness of the surveillance risks posed by smart city technologies.

Principal Investigator

Brian Ray, Professor and Director, Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection

Faculty & Institution Building

Community-led Public Interest Technology

This project will create a collaborative mechanism between university faculty and students to identify and drive community-led PIT solutions to critical issues, such as public safety, alongside experts in the field for the residents of Hough.

Kelle DeBoth, Assistant Professor, School of Health Sciences