PiTech Master’s Impact Studio

Program Overview

PiTech Impact Studio is a spring semester course offered by the PiTech Initiative at Cornell Tech through Cornell Tech’s Studio program. In this class, interdisciplinary teams of Master’s students are paired with public interest organizations to explore and prototype digitally-enabled solutions, products or services that can advance their missions. Student teams draw on the processes of research, ideation, selection, and validation in the course of creating technology-related deliverables identified in partnership with the organization. The Studio is led by Robin Hood Foundation’s Chief Program and Impact Officer, Matthew Klein.

• The course runs from January to May, 2025.

• Spring 2025 challenges will be thematically related to opportunities for increasing upward mobility from poverty in the United States, and challenges may be related to child care, education, job training, housing or other relevant fields.

• Our graduate students have a range of technical skills, including AI (machine learning, LLMs), AR/VR, data science, human-centered design, product development, business, and IP law. See Cornell Tech’s Master programs for more details on student backgrounds.

• The objectives of PiTech Impact Studio are to support our partner organizations while providing students with

  • Exposure to government, non-profit, and/or social impact organizations from multi-stakeholder domains, such as public health, housing, food security, social justice, economic inequality, and sustainability. 

  • Hands-on experience identifying, proposing, assessing, and/or validating digitally-enabled products, services, processes, and challenges that arise in the context of the public interest organizations' needs and missions.

  • Contextual insights and exposure to the opportunities and challenges of navigating technology-based innovation within government agencies, nonprofits, and social ventures.

  • Practical exposure to how public interest organizations manage, procure, and finance, technology and innovation, and career path options across this sector.