A Better Tech: Public Interest Technology Convention & Career Fair

Dates: October 14 & 15, 2021 (online)

Funder: New Venture Fund

NYU’s commitment to The Alliance and to the PIT-UN extends to this and any project funded by the network. NYU is committed to leveraging the resources in the Office of the Provost through its Center for Faculty Advancement (CFA), to support this project in every way necessary to ensure the PIs successfully achieve our shared goals. For this project, CFA will leverage its resources to provide operations management support for this project, in addition to other resources as necessary to sustain the project.

The PIT-UN career fair aims to bring together undergraduate and graduate students with PIT organizations and PIT faculty to grow their PIT knowledge, make lasting connections, and collaborate in building the PIT-field at large. To meet these objectives, the PIT-UN career fair will be comprised of a 1.5 day event at NYU that will feature: Keynotes by leading experts in PIT (particularly NYU alums working in PIT as well as faculty who are PIT experts from NYU and other PIT-UN universities). Fire presentations by faculty on PIT-relevant topics. Workshops and case study competition for students where organizations bring real-world PIT challenges to the table for students to work on in interdisciplinary teams (computer science, social science, humanities); at the end of the second day, the solutions to the case study challenge will be evaluated by an expert panel comprised of PIT faculty and practitioners and be awarded a prize Roundtables that focus on the most pressing applied PIT-themes and issues (which can be sponsored by tech companies or PIT organizations) and that feature a mix of PIT practitioners, policy makers, faculty, and potentially students.

Panels focused on PIT career related topics with experts from academia, industry, NGOs, potentially be moderated by student moderators Booths where PIT organizations, NGOs, foundations, corporations, and PIT-UN universities can present themselves and showcase their work. A gallery that showcases a selection of PIT-related work of NYU students across all schools (such as end of year projects, or capstones), as well as career profiles of PIT professionals. A bulletin board with PIT job openings (virtual via a subsite of the NYU Alliance website; and analogue as an actual bulletin board in the career fair space). A book fair that sells a curated collection of PIT-relevant books. A reception at the end of day 1 and a party at the end of day 2 to facilitate networking. Videos of the keynotes and fire presentations by faculty, as well as selected interviews with speakers and participants.

Dr. Matt Statler is the Richman Family Director of Business Ethics and Social Impact Programming and a Clinical Associate Professor of Business and Society at NYU Stern School of Business. In this role he oversees Stern’s Social Impact Core Curriculum, which includes four courses required of all undergraduates that deal with ethical issues including the development and deployment of technology.

Dr. Mona Sloane is a sociologist based at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering where she teaches social science to engineers. She researches inequality in the context of AI design and policy. She also is affiliated with NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge (IPK), NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, The GovLab, and with Public Books.