Socio-technical Models to Culturally-Conscious Workforce Development

Equitable pathways to digital engagement will require more than just providing broadband access. It will also involve more culturally-conscious approaches that leverage community assets and navigate context-specific ways of working. Through interviews, participatory action research, and asset-based community development, I explore the systemic nature of barriers to digital engagement among resource-constrained workers. The talk will describe examples of community-based interventions to address these challenges, such as the development of a Community Tech Workers (CTW) program that has recruited and trained Detroit residents to provide technical support to more than 200 local businesses. Reflecting on lessons learned, I pose broader questions about more “culturally-conscious” approaches to workforce development.  

The New Civic Terrains Speaker Series convenes public conversations with thinkers and practitioners working at the frontiers of digital civic life. Through lecture and dialogue, the series highlights diverse ways of knowing and making, from empirical research and policy critique to creative practice and grassroots organizing. The series creates a collective opportunity for reflection, debate, and collaboration, fostering cross-disciplinary exchange and inviting audiences to imagine new civic imaginaries for a technologically mediated world.

The Digital Civics Initiative at Northeastern University is an interdisciplinary platform dedicated to understanding and reshaping the civic dimensions of digital technologies in contemporary life. The initiative brings together scholars, educators, activists, technologists, and artists whose work engages questions of technology and education, labor and automation, governance and public institutions, surveillance and data justice, environmental sustainability, community organizing, and human-centered approaches to machine learning and artificial intelligence.