Chaminade University is proud to partner with cutting-edge software company Constellation Network to expand a “datapreneurship” internship program aimed at empowering students to innovate in the emerging digital economy.
Constellation Network, a leading blockchain solutions business, provides guidance and technical assistance to two federally-funded grant programs at Chaminade, including the $10 million NSF-INCLUDES ALL-SPICE Alliance aimed at building data science capacity across the Pacific and the ’Inana Innovators Program to nurture sustainability entrepreneurs.
Now, Chaminade and Constellation Network are working together to scale up a unique “datapreneurship” internship, first piloted in Summer 2024, with a full cohort of five new students to begin in Spring 2025.
Participants will work to build their skills as data scientists and entrepreneurs, leveraging Constellation Network’s blockchain technologies to tackle real-world challenges.
Dr. Helen Turner, principal investigator of the NSF-INCLUDES ALL-SPICE and ’Inana Innovators programs and co-principal investigator of the NSF EPSCoR Change HI project, said industry partnerships are “critically important to STEM higher education, especially in computational disciplines that have dramatic workforce shortfalls.”
“Our students are inspired by the transformational leaders and world-class technical experts they meet and they form game-changing networks to enhance their career prospects,” she said.
Turner added a short-course certification program is also being developed as part of the partnership. “Economic growth and diversification is a decades-long conversation in the islands, and I think our students feel the energy around the digital economy and Web3.0 as a truly viable path for increasing prosperity and accessing technical jobs in Hawaii and beyond,” Turner said.
Benjamin Diggles, co-founder of Constellation Network, said the business is “incredibly excited to be at the forefront of sovereign data attribution and incentive design by aligning with forward-thinking entities such as the ALL-SPICE program at Chaminade.”
“Both communication and financial exchange capabilities have significantly up-leveled because of Web3.0 technologies,” Diggles added. “In conjunction with joining this key alliance, Constellation is working with other universities on furthering Web 3.0 education.”
For more on the ALL-SPICE Alliance, click here.