Equipping and Empowering Faculty through Professional Development to Create a Future-Ready Workforce in Emerging Technologies

ABSTRACTTech industry, especially, some areas within tech fields, such as Emerging Technology (EmTech), like cybersecurity, data science, mobile development, machine learning, AI, and cloud computing, are expected to experience immense increases in job opportunities in coming years. While a variety of solutions are necessary to address the growing workforce needs in the EmTech industry, one of the largest untapped talent pools is women and underrepresented students. Clearly, HBCU and MSI hold great potential to broaden participation in EmTech because of their more diverse student populations, access to a large number of underrepresented students, and closer faculty-to-student interaction. However, faculties at these institutions, who are at the forefront of developing required skills in students are often overlooked. Faculties at these institutions need help designing and implementing effective and evidence-based instruction materials to develop skills that are in high-demand in the EmTech industry. The goal of this panel is to offer a platform that can provide insight into the development of faculty professional development programs in EmTech in traditional institutions and within the context of HBCU and MSI.