While we laid these out over the course of 4 weeks, you can think of each box as a component that could take as much or as little time as relevant to your goals.

The first component frames the course, laying out definitions, principles, and scoping the problem in a clear way. It also introduces the field of Public Interest Technology, along with the history and evolution of digital technologies.

Some of the questions it explores:

• What is Public Interest Technology?

• Why is it important to "get tech right?"

• How has digital technology evolved over time?

• What is the difference between modern and legacy technology?

• What is a digital product?

• What is the tech stack?

Building on Week 1, this week zooms into digital from a product perspective: what is a digital product and how does it come to be? It will start by putting the products we interact with into context and exploring what is happening at each layer. The focus will then shift to *how* products are designed and delivered, including processes, methods/approaches, and skills.

Some of the questions it explores:

• What are the characteristics of a modern product?

• What is a product manager and why are they critical to success?

• What is a digital product and how does it come to be?

• What are the methods and processes currently used to build modern products / services, and what are their characteristics?

• What are the skills needed when designing/building a digital product/service?

• What is the role of design?

• How can design help integrate ethics and equity into product development?

Week 3 is focused on the backend and data, exploring what’s happening behind the scenes and what powers the technologies we interact with. From infrastructure and security to data: what it is, how it’s collected, stored, managed, moved, and how it relates to the product(s) built on top of it.

Some of the questions it explores:

• What is "the backend"? "Infrastructure"?

• What is the difference between a web server, application server, database, and network appliance?

• What are some of the primary programming languages and what are some common uses?

• What are the common architecture patterns?

• What is data, and how does it relate to the application layer?

• What is the difference between structured and unstructured data?

• What are AI/ML, and what kinds of problems do they realistically solve?

• What is the difference between authentication from authorization?

• What is the difference between security and privacy?

• How can security be built into product development?

• What is the basic difference between modern and legacy infrastructure, and how does it impact the opportunities / options for what is built on top of it?

Week 4 takes what we’ve learned and puts it in a government context. Now that participants know what it *should* look like, we dive into the gory details of what this actually looks like in government, why the government "can't just [do X] like the private sector," why things go wrong, what happens when they do, and how to prevent disaster and improve outcomes. No abstractions, no theory. 100% real talk.

Some of the questions it explores:

• What are the stakes for technology in government?

• What does digital do and what does it not do?

• Why can't the government just [do X] like the private sector?

• What does delivering digital technology look like in government?