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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
KC Digital Drive, the KC Coalition for Digital Inclusion (KCCDI), and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) have coordinated to host three complementary events focused on the digital future of cities. Digital Week will bring delegates and attendees from around the country for a focused week of learning and connecting in Kansas City. There are a mix of free and paid events with a variety of topics and target audiences, and we’ve included a number of opportunities for Kansas Citians to interact with our out-of-town attendees, to participate in Kansas City’s leadership role in these critical conversations.
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 […]
On November 11th, the Comeback KC Ventures program held its first Innovation Showcase, highlighting 12 entrepreneurs who are developing new products and services in response to COVID-19. The full list of entrepreneurs who presented can be found below, along with a brief description of their solution and a link to a recording of their presentation. […]
On September 21st, the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the 17 recipients of their Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC) Stage 2 Awards. One of the winners was the Connecting Underrepresented Youths with Employment Opportunities, led by the University of Kansas Center for Research, Inc. This project, which KC Digital Drive is partnering on, will build and test an integrated mobile application to help underrepresented youth find and access out-of-school-time learning opportunities.
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 […]
On November 11th, the Comeback KC Ventures program held its first Innovation Showcase, highlighting 12 entrepreneurs who are developing new products and services in response to COVID-19. The full list of entrepreneurs who presented can be found below, along with a brief description of their solution and a link to a recording of their presentation. […]
On September 21st, the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the 17 recipients of their Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC) Stage 2 Awards. One of the winners was the Connecting Underrepresented Youths with Employment Opportunities, led by the University of Kansas Center for Research, Inc. This project, which KC Digital Drive is partnering on, will build and test an integrated mobile application to help underrepresented youth find and access out-of-school-time learning opportunities.