eXtension Launches Engage & Empower Online

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For Immediate Release
April 25th, 2019
Contact: Aaron Weibe, aaronweibe@eXtension.org

eXtension’s Impact Collaborative has launched a new resource, Engage & Empower Online (EEO), to support collaborative efforts for Extension professionals that are part of Impact Collaborative project and program teams, and Innovation Facilitators. It is available in both web browser and mobile app versions.

EEO offers Impact Collaborative teams and Innovation Facilitators unique professional development opportunities including webinars and learning circles, access to a new online version of the Impact Collaborative Innovation Skill-Building Experience tool, and a place where the Impact Collaborative can continue to connect teams with the resources they may need to continue project or program growth towards increasing innovation and local impact.

Additionally, EEO users have exclusive access to publications and presentations such as research-based perspectives, global expertise, signals of change, and specialized data to help organizations transform urgent foresight into actionable insight from the Institute for the Future’s – Future 50.

One key feature of EEO enables teams to work collaboratively through a Groups feature, transcend the limitations of email communication, and ensure communication across geographically-dispersed teams continue beyond face-to-face Impact Collaborative events. Unlike previous models, such as Communities of Practice, EEO Groups are a place to continue incubation of a project or program beyond face-to-face events and connect with resources needed to help fill gaps in program and project planning while tapping into eXtension’s broad network of Innovation Facilitators, Key Informants, and Partners.

During today’s launch of EEO, 30 Impact Collaborative project and program teams and over 100 Innovation Facilitators have been given access.

To become an Impact Collaborative Project or Program Team and access Engage & Empower Online, members can send their project and program teams to the Impact Collaborative Summit which is held every April and October. Each member receives five free registrations to send a team to each Summit. To learn more about the Impact Collaborative Summit and registration, click here.

Additionally, members can host a Statewide or Institution-Wide Innovation Skill-Building Experience where eXtension provides the Impact Collaborative staffing and support to work with your teams in your states or at your institutions. To learn more about hosting a Statewide or Institution-Wide Event, click here.

About the eXtension Foundation

eXtension’s mission is to increase Extension professionals’ effectiveness in addressing issues of importance to the nation. eXtension provides up-to-date science, evidence-based information and education to Extension professionals and the general public. We foster creativity and innovation in developing solutions and methods of work, and advancing the visible and measurable impact of this work for the public good. Learning opportunities to collaborate, co-learn and co-create are generated through our virtual network of more than 15,000 users system-wide.

About eXtension’s Impact Collaborative

The Impact Collaborative is a professional development experience for Cooperative Extension professionals. It provides learning opportunities geared towards innovation while bringing strategic support and new capacity to the Cooperative Extension System.  These experiences are enhanced with the help of external partners and supporting organizations. Working together, we find new ways to generate visible and measurable local impact.

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Using Artificial Intelligence to Support Extension Services

By David Warren
eXtension Artificial Intelligence Fellow

Alexa, Siri, Google Search and other consumer-facing machine learning services have revolutionized the way that many people find answers to questions that occur in everyday life. With this thought in mind, eXtension is investigating how AI and machine learning tools could be applied to both improve access to information and increase the local impact of Extension Services. 

Our investigation has led to a scoping effort and preparation of a grant application that envisions the creation of a machine learning service. This service would accept questions from clients of partner Extension Services via text input, and deliver answers and resource links.

The type of service we are envisioning is a “chatbot”, which will utilize machine learning algorithms to find the best answers to questions. The chatbot will built on top of eXtension’s large database of thousands of questions and answers gleaned from years of the Ask an Expert service. Additional content hosted by partner Extension Services such as fact sheets, reports, links to workshops, and connections to local offices and resources could also form part of the answers that would be supplied to questioners. 

The chatbot would be accessible via API’s by the various Extension Services for use with websites, text response from phones, and potentially other uses. We hope to superpower local extension websites with this service, with eXtension remaining invisible behind the scenes. The goal is to provide local information and local connections, capitalizing on national data for machine learning to provide high-quality chats/answers.

This project in no way conceived as a replacement for the vitally important people who work in Extension Services. Instead, it is intended to leverage the expertise of Extension personnel in a new way, in order to reach people who likely would not have connected to Extension. We will work hard to give it the Extension feel, with right touch and local feeling.

The initial meeting of an ad hoc advisory group was held on April 10, 2019. Attendees from Land Grant Universities included: Becky Griffin of the University of Georgia; Rose Hayden-Smith of the University of California; Steve Judd of the University of New Hampshire; Robin Baumgartner of the University of Idaho; Eli Sagor of the University of Minnesota; and David Warren of Oklahoma State University.

A second meeting of the ad hoc advisory group is planned for April 29, 2019. The grant application for this project will be submitted at the beginning of June, and if funded, the project should begin late in the summer. Look for further updates here at eXtension.org. 

 

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David Warren named as eXtension’s 2019 Artificial Intelligence Fellow

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For Immediate Release
April 10th, 2019
Contact: Aaron Weibe, aaronweibe@eXtension.org

eXtension has named David Warren from Oklahoma State University as the 2019 Artificial Intelligence Fellow. He will guide and frame a digital content scoping project which will be conducted by an eXtension technical partner in April, 2019.

According to David,

“I’m both honored and excited to work with eXtension to help move forward the use of AI and machine learning for Extension Services across the country. This technology has great potential to build on the enormous knowledge that the professionals in Extension have built up over time, and help organize and deliver that knowledge in an innovative manner.”

David Warren is a strategist with expertise in driving change and launching digital businesses and products. The creation, management, and marketing of online businesses and data products has been the focus of David’s career for over twenty years.

David is currently Senior Director of Integrated Digital Strategies for the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University. He has previously held executive positions at large global corporations including VP of Data & Marketing Technology, VP of Digital Media, and Global Channel Manager for Ecommerce.

David holds an MBA from Oklahoma State University and has co-authored articles on the topic of Internet business that have appeared in peer-reviewed journals.

 

 

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Impact Collaborative Leads Statewide Innovation Skill-Building Experience at the University of Idaho Extension

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For Immediate Release
Contact: Aaron Weibe, aaronweibe@eXtension.org
April 4th, 2019

Idaho Falls, ID. eXtension’s Impact Collaborative led a statewide Innovation Skill-Building Experience for the University of Idaho Extension at their annual conference. Over the course of two days, the Impact Collaborative worked with 117 Extension professionals on 17 teams from across the state to help build skills in increasing innovation, ideating with project and program teams using a design thinking and lean experimentation methodology, and creating action plans for projects and programs ready for implementation.

According to Dr. Barbara Petty, the Director for Extension at the University of Idaho,

“I believe that the Impact Collaborative methodology has really helped our teams to look at their projects, look at what they are doing, and identify gaps, holes, and resources they may need to move forward. We’ve been able to break down into small groups and really have had the opportunity to have a lot of great conversation around the issues and the problems. [We’ve] been able to look at different things, see what is different in the past, and look to see how we can do things differently. I really feel like this has been an opportunity for our teams to be innovative, throw out new ideas, and look at new ways of doing things to reach our changing demographics and audiences in Extension.”

The University of Idaho Extension will continue working with the project and program teams that attended to help move vetted projects towards implementation. eXtension will provide direct support to further incubate six teams that are involved with projects that align with eXtension initiatives and new technologies.

Every eXtension member can host the Impact Collaborative annually for a statewide or institution-wide event focused on building skills in Innovation. eXtension provides the staffing and support for these events. Each event is designed alongside our members to adapt to their unique needs and desired outcomes and outputs. To learn more about state and institutional events, click here.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR1Xn-SpRno&width=300&height=169&centervid=1[/embedyt]

 

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