On Thursday, November 2, 2023, the NSF Center for Smart Streetscapes (CS3) held its inaugural Community Partners in Residence (CPR) Program workshop. We were excited to welcome our first group of Harlem CPRs to the program. Ester Fuchs, Chief Social Impact Officer of the CS3 and Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science at Columbia University convened the workshop and moderated the discussion. Barbara Askins, Senior Advisor to the CS3 and President of the 125th Street Business Improvement District opened the conversation with an overview of the role of CPRs at the Center. Barbara invited all CPRs and researchers to introduce themselves and discuss their interests. Sharon Sputz, Industry Outreach Lead of the CS3 and Executive Director of Strategic Programs at Columbia’s Data Science Institute provided background on the Center and the type of technology it hopes to develop. Other researchers from Columbia and Rutgers briefly described their areas of focus, which launched a lively discussion with community members and CS3 leadership. Lynda Hamilton, the CPR Community Engagement Manager organized the workshop and has been working closely with community partners to ensure that the CPR program has effective community representation.
The program is designed for continuous feedback, so that CPRs will play an integrated and continuous role in determining what research gets done and whether research is transformed into practical applications to pilot at the streetscape.
The Community Partners in Residence program is critical to the success of the Center’s work, ensuring that research on solving streetscape problems is developed in partnership with the Harlem community. The workshops provide opportunities for interaction and collaboration, where researchers will share their ideas for improving the quality of life on the streetscape and CPR’s will learn about transformative technology. The program is designed for continuous feedback, so that CPRs will play an integrated and continuous role in determining what research gets done and whether research is transformed into practical applications to pilot at the streetscape. CPRs were recruited from community organization partners and are leaders in Harlem, all are active in Harlem civic life, and interested in technology as well as the various community needs that technology can address. The CPR workshops will meet twice a month through mid-May 2024. It is the convergence between research, community engagement, and social impact that will ensure that all technological applications developed by researchers will adequately reflect and respond to the stated needs of Harlem residents.