Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


Grants Fund Higher Ed Projects Using Technology for Public Good

  • By Sara Friedman
  • 10/08/19

The Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN) has announced its inaugural list of grantees for its Network Challenge. Twenty-seven grants were awarded to 21 colleges and universities to support projects focused on training engineers, policymakers and social justice advocates on how to use technology for the public good.

PIT-UN was created earlier this year by a group of 21 colleges and universities with funding from the Ford Foundation, New America and the Hewlett Foundation. The Network Challenge is providing $3 million in grants to fund the first cohort of projects.

Some of the projects are designed to help universities engage with their local communities. The City University of New York, for example, will build a summer bridge program to encourage "diverse graduating high school students" to enter PIT-related academic and experiential learning programs in college.

Other efforts are giving students opportunities to gain work experience at federal, state and local government agencies. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is setting up a Cybersecurity Clinic to place MIT students at city agencies to help document their vulnerabilities to cyberattacks.

There are also projects focused on developing open educational resources. At Carnegie Mellon University, for instance, Professor Yulia Tsvetkov has received a grant to create open-access educational materials from her Computational Ethics course.

"By fostering a new generation of public-interested technologists and spurring collaboration across disciplines and institutions, these grants will help ensure that technology and innovation play a role in solving the complex problems that the world faces — from climate change to national security, digital disinformation to economic inequality," said Hewlett Foundation President Larry Kramer.

The full list of grantee institutions:

Colleges and universities who are interested in joining PIT-UN can contact New America at [email protected].

About the Author

Sara Friedman is a reporter/producer for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe covering education policy and a wide range of other public-sector IT topics.

Friedman is a graduate of Ithaca College, where she studied journalism, politics and international communications.

Friedman can be contacted at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @SaraEFriedman.

Click here for previous articles by Friedman.


Featured

  • Young Woman Programmer Uses Laptop To Analyze Neural Network Models

    AI Leaders Warn of Security Risks at United Nations Briefing

    The heads of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Hugging Face joined AI researcher Yoshua Bengio at the United Nations headquarters in New York to warn the UN Security Council about the security risks of increasingly capable AI.

  • networked node grid featuring illuminated connectors

    Infrastructure Accounts for More than Half of Worldwide AI Spending

    Gartner forecasts worldwide AI spending will reach $2.67 trillion in 2026, up 49.5% from 2025, with AI infrastructure accounting for nearly $1.5 trillion, or about 56% of the total. For every dollar Gartner expects to be spent on generative AI models, more than $52 will be spent on infrastructure.

  • woman

    AI Giants Back Nonprofit Focused on Workforce Transition

    The AI industry's biggest names are investing in more than just models and infrastructure — they're focusing on workforce readiness. OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Amazon are backing Raise US, a new nonprofit that aims to raise $1 billion to help American workers prepare for an AI-driven economy.

  • Futuristic metallic block with pixelated digital erosion effect

    Report: AI May Be Eroding the Very Skills Employers Need Most

    AI is changing which human capabilities matter most at work, yet employees are reporting that some of those same capabilities are being eroded, according to a new IBM study.