News

Featured on the New America website, this article details the work of Carl Meyer, an information technology professional and the executive director of ShiftIT, a nonprofit organization located in Blantyre, Malawi, and Charlies Schweik, Associate Director of PIT@UMass and Professor, who together, launched the World Librarians program, a model for connecting requests for information from students in under-resourced countries with publicly available, open educational resources.  This amazing story details the successful six-year path of their work, including the rollout of over 30 rural school deployments in Malawi, expansion into Kenya, and overall broadening of availability of resources.  According to Schweik, “What is remarkable about this project is that it shows just how small the world has become, and how technology coupled with social ingenuity can create systems where people on two sides of the world who have…

Join the Data Analytics and Computational Social Science (DACSS) M.S. Program on Tuesday, December 13, from 1:00 pm - 3:00pm in the Student Union Ballroom for a Student Research Symposium featuring 50 student research projects on topics ranging from climate change and insect eating, to gender bias and discrimination and voter turnout. Drinks and light appetizers will be served.  Envelope

PIT@UMass recently announced its 2023 Faculty Fellowship Program, which focuses on addressing complex problems with public interest impacts that will reduce societal disparities through the responsible use of information technologies. Any tenure and non-tenure track faculty from any UMass Amherst School or College who can serve as the PI of an externally funded grant may apply and proposal teams may request between $5K-$8K (total).  Proposers are welcome to use the PIT Fellowship as complementary funding to investments from UMass departments and schools or colleges to incorporate public interest considerations into their work.  As part of the Program, Fellows will meet as a cohort and share their work with each other and the campus in private and public events in a format loosely based on Harvard’s Radcliffe Fellowship – known for developing work with both depth and impact. …

This past October, the Apache Software Blog highlighted the work being done in a National Science Foundation-funded research team from UMass Amherst and the University of California, Davis. This project, ‘Jumpstarting Successful Open-Source Software Projects with Evidence-based Rules and Structures’ was funded under NSF’s Growing Convergence Research program, part of the NSF’s 10 Big Ideas initiative. In determining whether an open source project will succeed, the project team the team chose the Apache Software Foundation to understand how nascent and maturing projects in the Apache Incubator build sustainable communities that can create and maintain high-quality software. The blog post details the results of their work and plans for future activities. Read more. Envelope

Have you heard of RTC? The Responsible Tech Coalition (RTC) is an interdisciplinary organization of students who are committed to seeing that technology is ethical and accountable. Through collaborating with people from diverse industries and backgrounds, we will come together to emphasize the impact that technology can have on society. The coalition is dedicated to the advancement of dialogue, policy, and practice around responsible technology at UMass and society at large. We will start these difficult conversations by hosting events like speakers, book clubs, hackathons, and open forums which will in turn create a network within UMass that cares deeply about responsible applications of technology.  If you have a passion for responsible tech or want to learn more, we would love to welcome you to our community! Our space is welcome to all students (graduates and undergraduates), staff, and…

The next event in the “Tech in the News” event series takes place Tuesday, December 6 from 1:00 - 2:30 pm.  Hosted by CICS EQUATE and the Public Interest Technology Initiative (PIT@UMass),  this series focuses on the technology implications behind various topics in the news.  In this next event, our speakers will be Professors Ethan Zuckerman and Hamed Zamani, who will exchange perspectives on events and transitions taking place within social media.   Professor Fran Berman will moderate the discussion.  Recent articles in the news, which will be referenced during the discussion, include:How TikTok ate the internetThe Washington PostHey Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run The Content Moderation Learning CurveTechdirtAll are welcome to attend and join the conversation!Date: December 6, 2022 Host: EQUATE and PIT@UMassEvent Type: In personTime: 1:00- 2:30 pmLocation: CICS 150/151Lunch will be served.Please…