The STEM Saturdays program, launched in 2017 under the direction of George Delagrammatikas, professor of mechanical engineering at the Cooper Union, aims to engage talented, at-risk New York City high school students in engineering activities. The curriculum focuses on teaching in-depth understanding of microcontroller applications and computer programming skills and includes lunch time presentations on the college admissions process, career development, intellectual property, and patent law. Students work with electronic circuits, switches, resistors, digital inputs, LCDs, DC motors, photocells, RFID modules, and IR receivers. They also learn to program computers to create a “smart home,” with connected lighting, HVAC, and motion alarm systems; and work in teams to develop a design project using engineering principles to solve current, real-world problems. This grant provides three years of operational support for the continuation of STEM Saturdays. In addition to continued operation of the program, grant funds will support a series of program improvements, including increased training of the mentors, and more timely access to instructional materials. In addition, Cooper Union will formally link STEM Saturdays with their long?running Summer STEM program to create a progression of STEM college readiness support for underserved students; formally incorporate both programs into their undergraduate admissions strategy to increase diversity within their STEM enrollment; develop the financial and institutional support for long?term sustainability of the program; and engage other New York City STEM outreach programs to expand opportunities for students across New York City.

BetaNYC aims to improve civic technology and open data usage in New York City. The organization partners with New York’s borough president offices and the 59 community boards under them, focusing on how better use of technology and access to data can improve on-the-ground decision-making at a hyper-local scale. Among many other activities, BetaNYC runs a Civic Innovation Fellows program, which puts CUNY undergraduates to work identifying and addressing technology needs at borough president offices and community boards; offers open data training to municipal government workers; developed an open data dashboard to allow community board members to quickly and intuitively access relevant data, like the number and type of complaints received; and has launched several new software tools to inform community-level issues like liquor licensing or tenant disputes. Funds from this grant provide two years of operational support for BetaNYC.

Devoted to cultivating the community of software engineers living in and around New York City, hackNY runs community-building hackathons as well as a marquee summer fellowship that combines internships with networking and cohort training in practical career skills. As a complement to summer intern programs run by Google and Facebook, the hackNY internship program specifically works with start-up companies that do not have the resources to run their own efforts. Funds from this grant provide operational support for hackNY for two years.