Why Universities Need ‘Public Interest Technology’ Courses

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Suzanne Johnson <fuhn () pobox com>
> Date: August 24, 2018 at 12:05:45 EDT
> To: "DAVID J. FARBER" <farber () gmail com>
> Subject: Why Universities Need ‘Public Interest Technology’ Courses
>
> ...clip
>
> Policymakers at all levels of government are struggling to thoughtfully harness data in the service of public values. 
> Many public servants grew up in an era of firmly separate disciplines: You were either an engineer or an economist, 
> either a programmer or a social worker, but never both. In an era in which data is everything, the risks to core 
> democratic principles—equity, fairness, support for the most vulnerable, delivery of effective government 
> services—caused by technological illiteracy in policymakers, and policy illiteracy in computer scientists, are 
> staggering.
> This has happened because traditional academic disciplines, as they currently operate, often aren't designed to help 
> students       study and apply technical expertise to advance the public interest (as distinct from advancing 
> commercial interests). Students doggedly find their own public interest paths; in fact, the digital generation now in 
> college and graduate school craves meaningful work that will change the world. As long as they can make ends meet, 
> they'll happily work for less money in public interest jobs in government and nonprofits. But most universities 
> haven't provided pathways for these digital natives to cross-train in policy and computer science by working on real 
> problems, or to combine expertise in data science with the capacity to think deeply about the ethical and social 
> implications of the use of digital technology.
>
> ...clip
>
> https://www.wired.com/story/universities-public-interest-technology-courses-programs/



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