Membership Guide

Explore PIT-UN Membership

About PIT-UN

Launched in 2019, the Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN) is a partnership that unites colleges and universities committed to building the field of public interest technology (PIT). Through the development of curricula, research agendas, and experiential learning programs in the PIT space, these institutions aim to develop graduates with skills and knowledge at the intersection of technology and policy.

We invite you to check out our Membership Guide to learn more about how the Network is structured, how members work together, and how can anyone engage the Network.

What is Public Interest Technology?

PIT-UN member institutions define public interest technology as the study and application of technology expertise to advance the public interest.

This definition underscores three very important points. For the Network’s purposes, we propose to define technology expertise very broadly. Technology expertise refers to a set of capabilities to create, apply, study, and use new technologies and an understanding of the core ethical, legal, policy, and societal dimensions of technological change. As technology becomes more of a governing force through its own design and uptake and its literal use by governments to govern, we need to cultivate a set of experts who can both wield the tools of the relevant technical domains and assess the tools’ social and political implications. We think of this mix as a body of knowledge that enables the development, application, and study of technologies with attention to the social and political possibilities of their design and use, but that also can be applied analytically in the policymaking process.

Second, the definition is specific about the purpose sought by the application of technology expertise. The emphasis is on a notion of public interest or common good, as distinguished from the design of technology or technology policy to advance commercial or individual goals and interests.

The public interest — while difficult to define — is understood to reflect the welfare of society in general, rather than the welfare of a particular individual, group, or company. Government and civil society are seen as playing primary roles in advancing societal objectives, though other sectors often play a role as well. While this definition clearly includes the deployment of new technologies on behalf of public policy priorities, it also creates space for a shared recognition (by the private and public sectors) of the responsibility to critically assess the benefits and risks of the new technologies that are created and used, and to incorporate technical knowledge into the formulation of laws, regulations, and policies. This means that efforts to constrain the “bad” use of technology or to mitigate the harmful impacts of technology are also a part of the field.

Third, the definition specifically calls out a systematic way of studying technology in the world, including unforeseen and adverse consequences and ways to harmonize technology and society. It is a study of the societal experiences imposed by technology design as well as ways to use technology design to harmonize and affect governance and society.

How PIT-UN is Structured?

Universities and colleges can apply for membership every fall through the PIT-UN website. Becoming a member brings many benefits to Network schools, students, and faculties including educational and networking opportunities, information sharing, and guidance for institutions on how to further develop their PIT programs.

Membership Commitments

By joining PIT-UN, universities and colleges commit to field-building on campus and beyond. Members may choose to focus on some or all of the elements below, in addition to other initiatives they deem relevant to establishing public interest technology as a field of study and education on campus:

Support curriculum and faculty development to enable interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary education of students, so they can critically assess the ethical, political, and societal implications of new technologies, and design technologies in service of the public good.
Develop experiential learning opportunities such as clinics, fellowships, apprenticeships, and internships, with public and private sector partners in the PIT space.
Find ways to support graduates who pursue careers working in PIT, recognizing that financial considerations may make careers in this area unaffordable to many.
Create mechanisms for faculty to receive recognition for the research, curriculum development, teaching, and service work needed to build PIT as an arena of inquiry.
Provide institutional data that will allow us to measure the effectiveness of our interventions in helping to develop the PIT field.

Membership Benefits

As a part of the Public Interest Technology University Network, member institutions have a unique opportunity to shape the PIT landscape by:

Participating in a learning community of scholars and practitioners seeking to prepare civic-minded technologists and leaders.
Applying for grant funding offered to Network members.
Accessing workshops and seminars to showcase the latest advancements in PIT.
Gaining complimentary registration and attendance by Network leads at the Annual Convening to discuss shared challenges and goals.

Observer Members

In order to include a broad spectrum of institutions, PIT-UN may invite the participation of observer members. Observer members can participate in activities within the Network, which include members-only workshops and seminars. However, they are not eligible to apply for funding through the Network Challenge until they apply and become official members. Observer members are invited at the discretion of the Network.

Designees are the key players of PIT-UN. They serve as a single point of contact for a college or university within the Network and are tasked with representing and translating the member institution’s public interest technology goals both on campus and within PIT-UN.

Designees are also tasked with participating in the field-building activities and projects to further the PIT space.

Designees are identified and deputized by the university’s president, provost, or senior leadership, and must have the capacity and support needed to pursue their institution’s public interest goals in campus-wide activities and programming. They should also have the support of two or three faculty, staff and/or administrators with institutional mandate to pursue PIT within their departments and the university, overall.

Designees will be assigned to a Working Group based on their focus area and can select their own Standing Committee assignment.

Responsibilities of the Designees

Designees must serve on one of our Standing Committees and a Working Group. A designee who cannot commit, can appoint another member of the member institution with the proper institutional mandate and decision capacity.
Designees and their teams, and any other participating faculty member, will help to facilitate the formal Annual Convening to discuss programmatic progress, lessons learned, future planning, and strategies for success with Network members. They also need to support their provost and presidents’ attendance at the convening as stated in their membership agreements.
Designees should aid in telling the stories of public interest technology by actively engaging with their institution’s public relations and marketing teams along with PIT-UN communication teams to highlight and celebrate researchers, faculty, and students advancing the field.

Other Designee Activities

Create channels of communication with the key departments in their institution to make sure all are on the same page about the institution’s approach to PIT.
Facilitate and track the identified field-building activities as outlined in the institution’s application to PIT-UN.
Keep PIT-UN abreast of the institution’s progress on field building activities via the quarterly calls, one-on-one meetings with the PIT-UN program manager, and year-end reports.
Aid PIT-UN as it engages the institution’s communications, development, and career services offices to tell successful PIT stories.
Identify fundraising opportunities to support public interest initiatives that cannot be funded through the Network Challenge and report on the career pathways of students and alumni from established and new PIT programs.
Ensure the institution’s submission of at least one application to the Network Challenge after a campus-wide application process.
Contribute to PIT-UN by personally partaking in the Standing Committees and Working Groups or nominate other institutional representatives to contribute to Working Groups.

Our grantees are the winners of our Network Challenge, and as such they engage with the Network for the duration of their grants (12 months).

The grantees are introduced as a cohort at our Annual Convening. We require that they complete their grants as specified in their proposals, check in with the PIT-UN team, present at the Annual Convening during their grant year, and deliver their final report. Grantees are also members of the PIT University Network, and are encouraged to take part in all our Events and Communication Channels.

PIT-UN members have commitments not only to their own work within public interest technology, but also to one another and to the expansion of the broader field. Standing Committees are tasked with building governing structures and member responsibilities to take ownership of the Network as it grows. They steer the overall strategy, scope, and direction of the Network, and they are tasked with shaping its rules and procedures, as well as establishing yearly goals to be revisited at each Annual Convening.

Responsibilities of Standing Committee Leads

Each Standing Committee is led by a chair or co-chairs who have the following responsibilities:

Establishing yearly goals for their committee and revisiting them every Annual Convening.
Creating and revising the structure of the Network.
Documenting their meetings, projects, and processes to establish a field-building memory of the field.

Standing Committees meet on a quarterly basis, and their meetings are open for public observation. The meeting time will be posted in the PIT-UN calendar and anyone can request admission to observe them.

Participation in the Standing Committee is required of all founding members, and they are expected to serve for three years. Founding member terms will end in fall 2021. New members joining each year will be invited to observe a Standing Committee in their first year and then serve as a member for the next two years: 2020 members will begin their Standing Committee commitment in 2021.

Current Committees

Governance

The Governance Committee is tasked with planning evolving membership criteria and organizing structures. It is also responsible for deciding and setting up the Working Groups that will be active for the year and their particular scope.

Communications

The Communication Committee is responsible for the overall communication strategy within the Network and member institutions. It is also responsible for helping to shape the public interest technology within PIT-UN and establishing the themes and topics within PIT that will be addressed in our events.

Membership/Outreach

The Membership Committee seeks out new members based on developed criteria and establishes new partnership opportunities with both academic and non-academic organizations.

PIT-UN Working Groups explore key issues in building public interest technology as a field and offer recommendations, tools or strategies, and policy or research papers for PIT-UN to review or adopt. The Working Groups are tasked with piloting innovative ideas that can push the PIT space forward.

The Working Groups are set by the Governance Standing Committee and are tasked for a period of 12 months, starting at the Annual Convening and concluding on the next convening upon reporting their results. Designees or individuals from PIT-UN institutions can participate in Working Groups, but they must commit to at least 12 months.

The Governance Standing Committee can also create Temporary Working Groups that will focus on specific tasks that are important for the PIT-UN process. These could include an Annual Convening-focused Working Group or Evaluation Committee Working Groups.

Responsibilities of Working Group Leads

Each working group is led by a chair or co-chairs who have the following tasks:

Determine the scope of work that can be completed and presented by the group at each year’s Annual Convening.
Present the result of their work at PIT-UN’s Annual Convening.
Document their meetings, projects, and processes to establish a field-building memory of the field.

Working Groups meet every other month via conference calls or regional meetings, and their meetings are open for public observation. The meeting time will be posted in the PIT-UN calendar, and anyone can request admission to observe them.

Current Working Groups

Career Pipeline and Placement

Finding the next step for public interest technology graduates is one of the most pressing issues for the field. The Career Pipeline and Placement Group is tasked with developing career training and opportunities for students in the PIT topics.

The Working Group is focusing on exploring ways to tackle and frame the salary gap, creating tools for unlocking government partners, showcasing and increasing the visibility of PIT jobs and employers students and career offices, and exploring partnership opportunities with existing job board resources such as LinkedIn, Handshake, GovTech, and Code for America.

Faculty and Institution Building

To create future PIT leaders, we need to train and invest in the practitioners and academics who are shaping the field. The Faculty and Institution Building Group is tasked with expanding the capacities of faculty and leadership in our member institutions.

The Working Group is focusing on identifying and prioritizing policy challenges and the resources needed to tackle them via additional funding opportunities; creating support mechanisms for junior faculty to participate in PIT projects; and developing incentives to increase faculty participation in PIT-focused research, projects, and student mentoring.

When a Standing Committee or a Working Group has established the need for a particular program or pilot, it may create a task force to execute that program. A task force may be formed by designees and other individuals from the member institutions such as faculty or staff after engagement with the Standing Committee or Working Group lead.

A task force will employ a sprint methodology to prototype and pilot specific ideas, and will have managing support from New America’s PIT-UN team and other members of the Network. A task force can and should include students and interns from PIT-UN institutions to ensure their needs are being met by the activities of the pilot program or initiative. A task force is meant to incubate ideas in the hopes that if the ideas are found effective, they can be sponsored by member universities and colleges as part of their PIT efforts and scaled throughout the Network.

How to Engage the Network?

The Network Challenge is a grant program designed to seed and support initiatives that grow public interest technology at the university level. It supports the development of new Public Interest Technology initiatives and institutions in academia, and it invites proposals for projects that will produce deliverables and outcomes within one year. Network members are encouraged to apply for the challenge and also join other members in team applications.

It is funded through the generous support of the Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Mastercard Impact Fund, Siegel Family Endowment, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and Raikes Foundation.

The grant application is distributed to the individual designees in April, and the offices responsible for submitting grant applications at each of the PIT-UN member colleges and universities.

Network Challenge Priority Areas

The Network Challenge follows four priority areas:

Educational Offerings.
Faculty and Institution Building.
Career Pipeline and Placement.
Strengthening the PIT-UN.

You can learn more about the Network Challenge here.

Wednesday Webinars

Directed at anyone interested in the PIT sector, the webinars showcase conversations on topics related to technology, policy, and the like. Working Groups are encouraged to pitch possible webinar collaborations between universities and colleges. PIT-UN members are expected to promote the events on their campuses.

Webinar themes and topics are decided by the Communications Committee and hosted by the New America PIT Team on a monthly basis.

Field-Building Workshops

The PIT-UN team will design workshops that build skills and techniques that members have requested to boost PIT recognition. These workshops are directed at designees and their teams.

Based on a member consultation, the workshops will focus on the expressed needs of the Network members and designees.

Quarterly Calls

Every three months, PIT-UN hosts a mandatory Network meeting for designees and their teams. These include reports from Working Group and Standing Committees as well as updates from Network members, New America, and our funders.

Annual Convening

The Annual Convening, our most important event, unites our partners from higher education, philanthropy, and public policy to discuss building the public interest technology sector; hear from leaders and scholars about addressing systemic inequality; and discover how to use a career as a technologist for good.

It is also a particular moment for Network members to work together to evaluate the past year’s advancements in the field, as well as plan for the year ahead. The convening serves as a place for the Working Groups and Standing Committees to meet and assess their goals and aims for each year. PIT-UN announces its Network Challenge winners publicly.

The Annual Convening is normally scheduled in October or November and is hosted by one of our member universities. It is coordinated by members of the Network, expecting the designees to support both the logistics and contents of the Annual Convening.

PIT-UN Email

The formal means of communication between members, designees, grantees, and the PIT-UN team will be email via the dedicated [email protected] as well as [email protected]. These communications as all official information for their work within the Network focus on actionable material and tasks. We urge our members, designees, and grantees to be responsive, as all official information for their work within the Network is communicated through here.

PIT UNiverse Newsletter

Every month the PIT-UN team sends a newsletter with relevant information on the latest advancements in the field. We feature PIT stories from our members and spotlights on grantees and designees. The newsletter also contains information on the latest webinars and events happening in the Network. All members, designees, and grantees are encouraged to share the newsletter through their institutions. If you haven’t already signed up for the newsletter here.

Message Board (Slack Workspace)

As a designee, you will receive an invitation to join our Slack channel, which has designated spaces for people to share asynchronous information on PIT topics. This is not our main source of communication, but it functions as a space where members can share relevant PIT news and articles as well as engage other members of the team. Slack channels include:

Job Board, Fellowships, and other opportunities.
Information and Collaboration.
Papers, Blogs and Articles.
News and Events.
General.
Problems.

Though it is not mandatory, we encourage our fesignees to regularly check our message board to engage with each other and share news and resources.

Our LinkedIn page is another source of information where we share our latest events. Our PIT-UN group is a perfect place for meeting fellow PIT professionals, academics, and practitioners. We encourage every institution to share the site with their teams, faculty, and students to promote the Network’s events and results.