The California Education Learning Lab is pleased to announce the first award under its Building California’s Resilient Workforce initiative. UCLA DataX and the UCLA Center on Resilience & Digital Justice have been awarded a two-year, $300,000 grant to launch Public Interest Technology Pathways (PIT-P), led by UCLA Principal Investigator Dr. Safiya U. Noble.
As an emerging interdisciplinary field, public interest technology combines technical knowledge with ethics, policy, governance, equity, and public impact. PIT-P will provide multiple entry points to prepare UCLA undergraduates, future community college transfer students, and working professionals to understand how technologies influence communities and institutions while developing the skills needed to create more accountable and equitable technological systems.
Building on UCLA’s Data, Justice, and Society curriculum, the project will strengthen California’s public interest technology ecosystem through three interconnected pathways: a new undergraduate minor in Data in Society, expanded transfer pathways from California community colleges, and a stackable UCLA Extension certificate for working professionals.
“Who gets to shape the future of technology and data in society matters,” said Noble. “PIT-P is about broadening participation and preparing learners to engage AI and data systems with both technical expertise and an understanding of their social and ethical implications.”
The award reflects the convergence of several Learning Lab priorities: the 2022 Data Science Grand Challenge, which sought to make California the leader in undergraduate data science education; the 2024 AI Challenge, which incentivized faculty from California’s public higher education institutions to lead in the constructive development of AI use, understanding, and capability; and the 2026 Building California’s Resilient Workforce initiative to help learners develop the knowledge, skills, and credentials needed for high-demand and emerging fields.
Read the full UCLA DataX announcement →
View the project page to learn more →