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Opportunities

Explore PIT-UN member-only benefits, such as quarterly calls and field-building workshops, and general opportunities, such as job openings, fellowships, internships, and RFPs. Subscribe to our newsletter or visit this section to access up-to-date information.
 

Member-Only Opportunities

Request for Proposal Opens April 1

The Network Challenge

The Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN) Challenge is a unique program that drives equitable innovation in technology across academia, government, industry and civil society. 

All PIT-UN Members are eligible, and the application opens April 1, 2024.

Open Request for Proposal: Applications Due March 29th

PIT Career Fair Exploration

New America’s PIT-UN is seeking proposals from PIT-UN member institution’s Career Placement or Career Counseling Service staff whose work touches students’ interest in public interest technology to provide a multi-institution or regional career fair(s) to connect students and employers who are interested in the work of improving people’s lives through technology.

Request for Proposals

By becoming a member of the PIT-UN, members can apply for member-only funding throughout the year. The Network Challenge will launch its 5th year in spring 2023. In addition, we have had subject-matter-specific offerings, such as the 2019 election security request for proposal (RFP); the 2022 Technology Code of Ethics, in partnership with New America’s Digital Governance program; and the soon to launch 2023 Career Fair Exploration made possible by Schmidt Futures.
Jenny Toomey, director of the Ford Foundation’s Catalyst Fund.
Jenny Toomey, director of the Ford Foundation’s Catalyst Fund.
(photo credit: Kisha Bari)

Quarterly Calls

Member-Only

Every three months, PIT-UN hosts a mandatory Network meeting for designees and their teams to share updates from Network members, New America, and our funders.

Field-building Workshops

Throughout the year, PIT-UN will offer designees and members workshops designed to build skills and techniques. Designed for and sometimes by members, the workshops will focus on the expressed needs of the Network.

How to Engage the Network as a Member

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.

The network and challenge grants are funded through the support of the Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Mastercard Impact Fund with support from the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, The Raikes Foundation, Schmidt Futures and The Siegel Family Endowment.

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.

PIT-UN Working Groups explore key issues in building public interest technology as an academic discipline and offer recommendations, activities, tools or strategies, policy, and research papers for PIT-UN members to adopt or review.

Learn more 

 

PIT-UN Email

The formal means of communication between members, designees, grantees, and the PIT-UN team will be email via the dedicated PIT-UN(at)newamerica.org as well as PIT-UN-grantees(at)newamerica.org. 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.

LinkedIn

  • 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.

Join the Linkedin Group here.

Become a PIT-UN Member

As a public interest technologist, you can help train and inspire the next generation of talented, committed civic-minded technologists coming out of colleges and universities. Institutions across the U.S. are dedicated to providing students with clear career pathways toward technology-related jobs within the public and private sectors.

Explore our membership to help grow and strengthen the PIT industry.

We accept applications in October each year for new members to start their membership in January of the next year. 

 

Photo credit: Kisha Bari

Open Opportunities

PIT Online Speaker Series

Webinars

Directed at anyone interested in the PIT or responsible tech sector, PIT-UN webinars include in-depth conversations between Network members and leading PIT practitioners. Have an idea for our next webinar? Contact us to share. 

Job Boards

Embarking on a career in PIT means making a difference in the world. More than at any time, there are job opportunities from organizations big and small to allow you to launch or further your PIT career. Whether you are hoping to find a job in climate tech or one working to address cybersecurity threats, a public interest technology career path is a good start.

PIT Internships

Explore public interest technology student internship.

PIT Internships

Fellowship Opportunities

As technology continues to fundamentally reshape society, these fellowships will place you among the top tech decision-makers in the U.S. government, where you can make a difference.

The PIT List

A roundup of the latest public interest technology happenings from the PIT universe.

June 2023

July 2023

September 2023

October 2023

INFRASTRUCTURE

BOOKS

ADDITIONAL READING

  • How Has Computer Code Changed Humanity? (January 31, 2023) PIT-UN designees Charlton McIlwain and Ethan Zuckerman, along with Future Tense editor Torie Bosch and ASU Narrative & Emerging Media Program Founding Dir. Nonny de la Peña, discuss human decision-making’s impact on the digital world–and the ways that code, in turn, has shaped humanity.
  • Power to the Public: A Discussion about the Promise of Public Interest Technology, which focuses on how best to use data, design, and technology to solve society’s most pressing and difficult problems. During this event, the authors discuss examples of real change that have been brought by governments and nonprofits using data. 
  • Justice by the Numbers. Learn how an innovative partnership between lawyers for the ACLU of Massachusetts and public interest technologist Paola Villarreal resulted in the single largest dismissal of wrongful convictions in US history.
  • Transformative Justice and Knowledge Production in Tech. Techno-capitalism is renegotiating the social contract but knowledge about technologies is too often sequestered behind the locked doors of industry. Given these obstacles, how can researchers both inside and outside of tech companies do the difficult work of research, critique, and resistance? Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble, co-founder of UCLA’s C2I2 and Dr. Timnit Gebru, founder of Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research (DAIR), join J Khadijah Abdurahman to discuss these questions further.
  • On the Evidence: Ensuring Equity as Wastewater Testing Matures in the United States. On this episode of On the Evidence, guests Dr. Na’Taki Osborne Jelks, Dr. Otakuye Conroy-Ben, and Aparna Keshaviah discuss the challenges of and opportunities for ensuring an equitable approach to wastewater monitoring, and the importance of representation from historic Black neighborhoods, Indigenous communities, and rural communities.
  • Forward Thinking on the social contract in a postpandemic world with Minouche Shafik and Andrew Sheng. In this episode guest interviewer Jonathan Woetzel talks with two leading economists spanning Europe and Asia about the state of the social contract that underpins society.
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Latanya Sweeney, director and founder of Harvard University’s Public Interest Tech Lab, and Frances Haugen, social media advocate. (photo credit: Kisha Bari)