Presented by University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh Center for Analytical Approaches to Social Innovation (CAASI) translates real-world problems from the community into a set of quantitative research questions and engages experts across disciplines to solve them. CAASI is actively building tools to elevate racial equity and support the effort to fight the systematic racism that has been laid bare by the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless more before them. This, as well as the disproportionate brunt of health and economic suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic on minorities and vulnerable populations. CAASI has numerous research projects that support and build capacity for regional non-profit organizations and local community organizations, as well as foster interdisciplinary collaboration. We propose to facilitate an interactive workshop titled ‘From Grief to Action’ to help universities collectively advance racial equity. We would like to address transparency in policing and how universities can support and increase the visibility of businesses owned by Black, indigenous and people of color. Collating rigorous regional data, CAASI created an interface that addresses the problematic aspects of police unions and a system to help Pitt procurement and students purchase and promote regional BIPOC owned businesses. We would like to facilitate a discussion to help universities source and analyze data to implement systems change.