By Gabriel Arteaga, TDC National Manager

Here at AASCU and at our TDC/ADP member institutions, we are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to increase our students’ interest in civic and political engagement. It is why last week’s convening of experts in technology, journalism, civics, and elections at the University of Texas at Austin for a one-day conference was so important.

As TDC’s National Manager, I was invited to this conference to contribute to the discussion about identifying new ways to increase civic and political engagement. The event was hosted by The Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life, which is an institute at UT Austin that was created to highlight the university’s public mission of creating a more conscious society.

In partnership with the Knight Foundation, which “supports quality journalism, advancing media innovation, engaging communities and fostering the arts,” the convening was an ideal place for the foundation to announce 22 projects that seek to provide voters with better information to become more informed and engaged participants in the democratic process. For a full list of Knight News Challenge awardees, please see their press release here.

This conference helped us to continue to think about what the next frontier could be in our line of work and how to effectively utilize technology to address and resolve complex social issues to garner more interest and motivate millennials to be well-informed citizens and leaders in their communities.

If you would like to re-live the conference and view a full agenda with a list of panelist and speakers, please visit the Annette Strauss Institute website for a link to the video recording of the conference and a PDF copy of their agenda here.