PIT-UN Empowering Underrepresented Talent through Public Interest Technology Policy
West Virginia University’s Health Science and Technology Academy (HSTA) and Bridge Initiative for Science and Technology Policy, Leadership and Communications (Bridge) would like to thank the Public Interest Technology - University Network (PIT-UN) for its grant to fund the PIT-UN Empowering Underrepresented Talent through Public Interest Technology Policy (PIT-UN Empower) program.
The PIT-UN Network Challenge was a grant program that seeded and supported initiatives to grow public interest technology by encouraging new ideas, fostering collaborations, and incentivizing resource and information sharing among its 63 Network members.
The PIT-UN Empower Program
- Provided experiential learning opportunities for West Virginia’s underrepresented and underserved high school students.
- Encouraged students to persist in PIT education by showing them how their community-based participatory research (CBPR) could positively impact their communities through PIT policy activities.
- Centered the needs of West Virginia communities.
- Supported and promoted evidence-based approaches to enhance PIT policies and related economic development.
HSTA’s goals were to increase college attendance among African American, financially disadvantaged, first-generation college, and rural Appalachian youth so they could return as professionals to serve West Virginia’s underserved communities. HSTA students engaged in a rigorous academic program within a nurturing environment of small after-school clubs and summer camps.
HSTA partnered with Bridge to further its mission. Bridge’s PIT activities served as a connection between the science and technology expertise of WVU faculty and staff, West Virginian communities, and West Virginia’s national, state, and local policymakers by identifying and developing policy responses to the state’s societal challenges and opportunities.
PIT-UN Empower Project
- Engaged with HSTA students to provide core PIT policy training and career workshops.
- Prepared HSTA students during a 5-day in-person summer workshop to develop a PIT policy brief, present it to policy experts, and receive PIT career development.
- Assisted HSTA students in bringing their PIT message to policymakers in their home communities.
For more information, contact Dr. Melanie Page or the HSTA program contact at mcottrell@hsc.wvu.edu.