Further progress on my project this week after I was contacted by Per Scholas, an organization in the South Bronx who has just a few weeks ago opened an Urban Development Center focused on providing technology based education and job placement assistance to local area residents. I was able to pitch my project to their director of marketing who then said they would pass the project on to the organization’s head of communications, to gain approval on my interviewing students, faculty, and organizational representatives about their relationship with technology and the Civic Tech initiative.
So far, Per Scholas is the only organization who has gotten back to my request for interview. I figure that if all else fails, I will actually go to each of the organizations that I contacted to introduce myself and my project, to see if I can generate any interest in collaboration. Ideally, I am trying to keep all of the interactions I have with this community as hyperlocal as possible. I am hoping through this methodology to compile as robust a dataset as possible to be able to visualize it in some way, as representational of the community that may differ from that of social media or mass media in general.
However, I am also thinking of alternative ways to gather data about the community in the event that I cannot find anyone willing to participate in my project.
