website-circles-06Session Descriptions

These sessions are part of the Public Support and Engagement Lab, which is structured to provide a mixture of inspiring and engaging speakers discussing issues of collective impact and scaling social innovation with opportunities for Launch Pilot participants – and others interested in broadening participation in STEM – to work within their teams and across teams with each other. The experience will be brought together through a community conversation.


Broadening Participation: Making Large Scale Progress a Reality

The opening session keynote will be a national speaker who has proven successful in broadening participation in STEM. (Monday, April 3, 2017, late afternoon start with reception)


Driving Change through Data

Across the country, cross-sector efforts aim to implement comprehensive community initiatives to improve outcomes not only for individuals but for the full population. Sophisticated data bases are available to help drive our decisions, but how do we measure what works and what doesn’t? (Plenary Session, Tuesday, April 4, 2017, 9 AM)


Primer: Achieving Cross Sector Collaboration through Collaborative Modeling

The primer will be given by the PIs for Data-Driven Collaboration, Dr. Alexis Petri and Dr. Ronda Jenson, both of whom have extensive experience and expertise in this topic. It will focus on how novel approaches such as collaborative modeling can provide insights necessary for collective impact, such as common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, and continuous communication.


Solid State Sessions

On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, a group of trained and prepared high school students interested in STEM careers and college students majoring in STEM, from diverse backgrounds, will lead round table discussions about broadening participation from the student perspective. The group of students will also participate throughout the Public Support and Engagement Lab. (Tuesday, April 4 & Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 8 AM)


Closing the Digital Divide: Kansas City Case Study

The Kansas City region has emerged as a global leader in the new digital economy. The arrival of GoogleFiber in 2012, presented enormous opportunities for high speed connections throughout the community, yet, more than one quarter of urban core residents don’t have broadband at home. This session will highlight the unprecedented effort involving public and nonprofit leaders who worked together to overcome the digital divide that disproportionately affects disadvantaged communities. The moderator will be the Chief Innovation Officer of the Kansas City Mayor’s Office, and panelists will include the Kansas City Public Library’s Google Fiber Fellow, Digital Inclusion Fund manager, Digital Youth Engagement Manager, as well as a local nonprofit. (Plenary Session, Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 9 AM)


Collaborative Modeling Session – Hands On

Prior and during the conference event, the PIs and support team will coach the Launch Pilot sites through the modeling process. Prior to the event, Launch Pilot sites will receive the Collaborative Primer with accompanying data collection toolkit. The toolkit will consist of a survey to be administered to their Launch partners. The survey will be constructed specifically to provide data for teams to use when constructing models of their systems. After administering the survey, PIs and support team will host a virtual call with the sites to address any obvious gaps in knowledge prior to developing the model. The PIs and support team will draft a model to be presented to each site team during the conference event. At the event, a conference-designated facilitator will support the site teams through finalizing their working version of the model, interpreting their models, addressing gaps in the knowledge, generating hypotheses, and simulating the impact of change in policy, practice, and overall system within the model. The facilitator will then facilitate a decision-making/action planning session with the teams.


Public Support and Engagement Practice Sessions

There will be three opportunities for participating Launch Pilots to engage with different audiences to hone and test their message and communication strategies with a variety of audiences. The different audiences will be composed of representatives from the business and civic communities, public officials, and community-based nonprofit organizations.


Community Conversation on Collective Impact

As a finale to the Public Support and Engagement Lab, participants will engage in a community conversation that focuses on how to accelerate collaboration for large-scale progress. (Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 10 AM – 12 noon) [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]