governance of technology and governance through technology
An interdisciplinary applied teaching, research, and development lab exploring issues related to digital governance, co-created by students and faculty and focused on service to the community.
- Engage students in thinking about digital governance issues including tech regulation, civic technology, algorithmic decision making, AI and the future of work.
- Prepare students for careers in public interest technology.
- Produce high quality open research to advise and inform local, state, and federal policymakers on issues of tech regulation and governing with technology.
- Direct university technology resources to serving our local community and supporting and improving government services for the Charlottesville/Albemarle region.
- Digital Governance Class co-taught by rotating faculty advisor and student research fellow focusing on engaging students with the ideas and debates of digital governance every semester.
- Digital Governance Innovation Lab with paid fellows working to produce applied research to meaningfully inform local & state policy to create better technology regulation and better government technology.
- Annual Digital Governance Summit bringing together technologists, policymakers, and program officers to talk about the current state and the future of digital governance
- Board of Advisors: committed faculty members and administrators providing guidance and oversight to the activities and directions of the Lab.
- Affiliated Faculty: faculty members with research interests related to the work of the Lab, interested in events, mentoring students, or teaching a semester of the class.
- Program Director: responsible for overseeing the work of the student research fellows, communicating with Board of Advisors and affiliated faculty.
- Student Fellows: students working on applied research on regulation or civic technology and/or students working on the development of civic technology.
- Digital Governance Class co-taught by rotating faculty advisor and student research fellow focusing on engaging students with the ideas and debates of digital governance.
- Speaker Series on tech regulation and civic technology (3-5 speakers over the course of the year), either distributed across the year or in a symposium.
- Digital Governance Innovation Lab with paid fellows working to produce applied research to meaningfully inform local & state policy to create better technology regulation and better government technology.
- Annual Digital Governance Summit bringing together technologists, policymakers, and program officers to the university to discuss the current state and the future of digital governance, share innovative ideas, and encourage collaborative solutions.
- Annual Report on the state of digital governance and major trends with an overview of the work of the Lab in the last academic year.
- Technologist(s) In-Residence: 10 month fellowship bringing civic technologist(s) to the university to work on a policy or development project, work with research and development fellows.
- Summer Fellowship a stipend for students to spend their summer researching digital governance or working for an organization towards a similar end.
- Minor in Digital Governance: multiple classes offered explicitly in the digital governance space including a class focused on introducing students to the ideas and principles and a series of classes with a rotating faculty advisor focusing on different areas of digital governance (maybe one semester on technology related to transportation and urban planning, one semester on social media/social networking and the regulation of online speech, one semester on anti-trust and big tech monopolies, etc.), design ethics class for engineers, business ethics class for product managers. CS has way more electives than other engineering minors, this is super doable.
- Alumni Network: a formalized network for alumni of the lab to connect with and support one another in their digital governance careers
- Charlotte McClintock - char@virginia.edu
- Rohit Musti - ro@virginia.edu