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MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2022, 9AM -6:30PM

TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 2022, 8:30AM -5PM

INNOVATE

SOLVE

COLLABORATE

ABOUT THE NORTH CAROLINA EDUCATION DATATHON

The goal of the NC Datathon is to leverage technology and data to develop innovative solutions for addressing complex problems. This event will bring together university and student-led teams from across North Carolina. Teams are challenged to solve an education-related problem by using multiple sources of data.

Teams will work to develop applications, dashboards, and/or solutions to the problem and then present their projects to a panel of expert judges and conference attendees who vote for the best team. The two-day event will include keynote speakers, team work time, presentations, judging, and awarding of winners.

THE CHALLENGE

The digital divide has been a long-standing challenge for learners across North Carolina. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, access to digital devices and the internet was inconsistent across both rural and urban areas of our state. The pandemic brought significantly increased demand for access to broadband and devices, and while great gains have been made, there continues to be a persistent lack of equitable access to technology and connectivity. As North Carolina maintains a focus on meeting our postsecondary attainment goal of 2 million adults with high credentials or postsecondary degrees by 2030, it will be important to identify inequities in digital access and ways in which this impacts postsecondary attainment rates.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

What do we know about who is most affected by the digital divide?

What dashboards or data reporting mechanisms are necessary for accurately tracking broadband deserts?

How could North Carolina better track the effects of the digital divide?

What data is missing and/or required to understand the state’s digital divide and future postsecondary education attainment rates?

THE DATA

Teams are encouraged to use the publicly available data sets found here to develop their solutions. Teams are welcome to identify and utilize additional data sources so long as send them to the Hunt Institute to share with other teams. Please contact Julia Whitfield, Associate Policy Analyst at The Hunt Institute, at jwhitfield@hunt-institute.org to share additional datasets by March 25^th, 2022, at 5:00pm ET.