Thread by @seralinardi

After a year of @GSPIA @SciPitt @PittEcon #D4BL student-led engagement, survey, design, coding, writing, testing and polishing, #GrieftoAction 412Connect.org is finally open!

Univ students - meet minority business incubator @RCIPittsburgh and 8 BOBs in their own words!

https://twitter.com/CaasiPitt/status/1430643023025737731

The idea of supporting BOBs was first proposed to @CaasiPitt by D.Cohen @FordInstitute, then evolved into a social media scavenger hunt thru conversations led by #GSPIA @iyounanan @MaraMccloud with feedback from @CommForgePGH @CocoaPreneurPgh @BlackownedPGH @MetropolitanU

The platform design team @MichaelLHamilt3 of @KatzPittBiz and @alexdc_info of @WUSTL DCDS designed a non-linear badge system for completing #412Connect challenges. Ivy Chang of @PittEcon worked with @PittStudents and @PittHonors to offer badge conversions to OCC credit.

The programming kicks into high gear when @labrinid connected us with L.Oliviera of CS 1980 capstone. The Spring'21 team produced an amazing prototype and in the summer @SciPitt CS UG Collin Griffin and Tyler Olin (Digital Narrative Interactive Design/DNID) joined our staff.

And how our #412Connect undergrads found #CaasiPitt #GrieftoAction in @GSPIA (a grad program) is a story in itself, with the always-engaged @wprdc as the matchmaker across Pitt's various schools and departments. technology.pitt.edu/blog/412connect

You can hear more about the #412Connect scavenger hunt platform on 12 ET Sept 8th as we kick off the @PittTweet Year of Data and Society Conversations. calendar.pitt.edu/event/project_…
I'll preview of the platform design elements here as we get closer. #GriefToAction #CaasiPitt #GSPIA

Overall, 1yr after summer'20, I learned that the University is full of enthusiastic & skilled ppl that are the crucial nodes to concrete, community-centered change that is also rigorous research/teaching. The challenge is sustaining coordination across silos. #publicengagement.