Students in the fifth cohort of the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation’s (Partnership) Summer Internship program, formerly Smart Community Corps, are working on public innovation projects that address some of the most important civic challenges facing our state — and are branching out to solve challenges in other states, as well.  

The Greater Augusta Arts Council is utilizing the efforts of one intern, Galadra Plummer, to build upon the Artist Directory, a searchable database of Arts Council member artist’s profiles. This work will bring artists together with potential patrons, supporters, and businesses and foster opportunities for arts work in Augusta’s River Region. The Summer Internship is a program under the Student Engagement pillar of the Partnership, which is a statewide public-private collaboration housed at Georgia Tech to promote innovations that drive inclusion and growth to build economic mobility for a more resilient and equitable future.  

The internship program is designed to foster the next generation of innovators by providing civic-minded college students, both undergraduate and graduate, from across the nation with hands-on experience working on real-life problems supporting innovation work to create livable and equitable communities. This year’s cohort of 62 summer interns includes students from as far away as Oregon and Illinois and projects in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C., as well as in Georgia. The 35 host sites for 2023, represent city and county governments, higher education, nonprofit agencies, civic and minority-serving organizations, incubators, and startups. 

“The Arts Council is thrilled to have Galadra Plummer, a talented and hardworking intern, this summer to help us improve our Artist Directory as our online platform for matching local artists with people who want to hire them,” said Pax Bobrow, Intern Project Manager.“ The 2023 Summer Internship cohort is the largest, most competitive, most geographically diverse cohort the Partnership has had,” said Cody Cocchi, the Partnership’s student engagement manager. “This cohort will have the most significant impact across the state of any of our previous cohorts. This class represents a diverse group of higher ed students from 25 universities, 8 states, and 14 countries.” Galadra Plummer is currently entering their sophomore year at Kennesaw State University as a ceramics major and philosophy minor. Galadra is a visual artist grew up in Augusta, Georgia, and is always seeking new opportunities to expand their talents and display their art works. 

The Greater Augusta Arts Council’s internship appealed to Galadra because of its intersection between technology and the arts. As an artist, Galadra wants to widen their horizons on the “behind the scenes” aspects of the art world, while expanding upon their website development knowledge. This internship with the Arts Council will help Galadra develop professional skills as a creator, while engaging them with the city's local arts community.

Public innovation and civic technologies projects such as this one are important to a broad swath of people, from the interns to the project site representatives to the people who live in the communities where the projects are based. These paid internships continue through the summer, with a wrap up program in August, when students will present the findings from their work.