Education

Projects in action

Digital Divide Simulation

The Digital Divide Simulation is a new experiential event designed to illustrate the real-life impact and compounding challenges faced by individuals with limited access to technology. The event asks participants to step into a persona’s shoes and experience their life through a well-articulated sequence of activities and obstacles.

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Hire KC – College Internships

Hire KC connects college students to Micro-Internships at local nonprofits who need the extra resources, creating a unique opportunity to prepare students for the digital workforce while helping to build up resilient community organizations in Kansas City.

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Civic Innovation Challenge – Connecting Underrepresented Youths with Employment Opportunities

This is a $1M National Science Foundation-funded project that aims to support the Kansas City region’s youth by boosting work readiness and cultivating occupational identities. The project will help young people access more opportunities through innovative civic technology and a youth-centered app, and by specifically studying the transportation behavior of youth, and offering shared-mobility options like bikes, transit, and micro-transit services.

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School of Nursing Metaversity

KC Digital Drive has teamed up with the University of Kansas School of Nursing to develop and pilot the implementation of a virtual, immersive nursing school program to broaden access for prospective students from rural and urban areas in order to support and get students practice- and patient-care ready for new nurses.

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Air Quality Sensors

KC Digital Drive, working with a group of community partners, is putting up an array of sensors across Kansas City that will be used to measure air quality microclimates and detect pollution sources.  Through a partnership with US Ignite and funded by a National Science Foundation grant, KC Digital Drive received 50 air quality sensors that measure temperature, humidity, and particles (PM 2.5).  As a citizen science project, residents in the targeted area will be able to participate by having a sensor on their property. A visualization map of the data received from the sensors will be available to the public.  

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Smart Gigabit Communities

On a foundation enabled by the Smart Gigabit Communities grant, we’re in the second year of a three-year program that’s built around two goals: building at least two gigabit apps per year, and establishing a Digital Town Square that connects next-generation network resources within the metro area to keep gigabit traffic local and between other gigabit communities.

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Plays

News

Hire KC to Fund Capacity-Building Internships for Nonprofit & Startup Partners

NOTICE OF FUNDING OPPORTUNITY This NOFO is open to KC Digital Drive Community Partners and Fellows/Startups in the Solutions Lab Ventures program Question about eligibility or how it works, contact Kari Keefe at kkeefe at kcdigitaldrive dot org  Program Term: JUNE 15, 2023 to MAY 31, 2024 About Hire KC Micro-Internships  We know, first hand, […]

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The U.S. Department of Education Offers Recommendations on Closing the Digital Divide for Students and Educators

In the spring of 2022, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology (OET) launched its Digital Equity Education Roundtables (DEER) initiative, which involved a series of national conversations with families and community organizations to understand the barriers that students face in accessing technology. The DEER initiative emerged after the pandemic helped highlight the […]

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