The digital world is changing the expectations and roles for the public and nonprofit sectors around the world. Citizens expect governments to use new technology to provide services more efficiently and cheaply; new goods and services are expected; technology is creating new problems/issues that have to be addressed; and there is increasing competition from a digital and -tech-savvy private sector that may alter the landscape of public and nonprofit governance. The Andrew Young School (AYS) can identify how these sectors engage, produce, and distribute new and transformed goods and services in the future within the US and across the globe.

Identify the changes needed in: the structure, management and organization of governments and nonprofits to optimize their performance in this new world; the types of public services and programs provided and how they are paid for; how governments and non-profits get services to constituents; and the relationships among the public, non-profit, and private sectors across the world.

Changes in structure: Efficacy of international governance, federal versus subnational roles in Artificial Intelligence (AI) development and regulation

New roles of government: AI regulation, data ethics, provision of health care, addressing the technology divide

Financing: taxation of the gig and cyber economy, developing a new sustainable model for social safety net

Distribution: accessing clients virtually, e-goods distribution

Overall: harnessing big data and machine learning to understand needs and demand; using new technologies to increase service provision (policing, child welfare)

New technology is drastically changing the capacity of governments and nonprofits to meet the needs of the communities they serve, as well as the community’s expectations for service delivery. The arrival of this new digital world engenders a need to understand the implications of this new technology that leads to the effective development and implementation of new policies and programs. This knowledge will give leaders and policymakers the ability to affect the impact of new technology on issues of income differences, accessibility, equity, etc.

Work with students, the community, and industry/government/nonprofit partners to identify the positive and negative consequences of technology and research the impact on well-being, public performance, and ethics. We will also have a process to identify and support “wicked problems” we, as a policy school, should address.

The ethics and potential biases of using big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other new technologies and their impacts on communities.

Policy analysts/makers need credentials that prepare them to maximize the social benefits and minimize the social costs of digitization. These credentials must keep pace with the opportunities and consequences of digitization and be accessible so that a diversity of voices are informing public policy.

Teach content/skills that prepare graduates to innovate, evaluate, regulate, and manage in the public/nonprofit sectors

Design and deliver modules/courses using digital tools to maximize access, affordability, and quality

Creating autonomous systems, developing Peer to Peer platforms, mining blockchains

Nexus degrees (USG core +18hrs), bootcamps for up-skilling, graduate-level stackable micro-credentials