Project Kitty Hawk

Collegis Education to Develop a Data Strategy and an Integrated, Secure Online Platform to Serve Adult Learners Statewide

To achieve the ambitious goal of ensuring that 2 million North Carolinians complete a postsecondary degree or credential by 2030, the North Carolina legislature funded Project Kitty Hawk, a nonprofit ed-tech startup aligned with the University of North Carolina (UNC) System to serve adult learners. Project Kitty Hawk will offer a range of services to develop online programs and to attract, support and retain adult learners.

Collegis Education has partnered with Project Kitty Hawk to lead the development of the data and business strategy for its platforms. Collegis brings its deep knowledge of the higher ed enterprise to the initial technology platform strategy and build-out and will provide on-going support for activities such as data enablement, platform operations, learning technology, cybersecurity and strategy, program design, and student and faculty technology support.

Planning Data Integration, Technology Infrastructure

As a startup, Project Kitty Hawk is partnering with Collegis to drive their platform design, implementation, and ongoing operations through a build/buy/partner model. This includes:

• Leading a team of other technology partners, such as AWS and Accenture, to plan the technology for Project Kitty Hawk’s ecosystem.
• Playing an important role in the design and implementation of their critical technology systems and long-term data strategy.
• Providing the leadership for defining Project Kitty Hawk’s data governance – essentially acting as a shared data officer or CIO for the initiative.
• Defining and implementing key cyber security controls in partnership with AWS to drive towards SOC 2 Type 2 compliance.

Collegis Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer Kim Fahey and her team are working with Project Kitty Hawk leaders to think carefully about data governance and the onboarding of data, use of learning content and the systems where this information will reside, and support for the development and deployment of programs.

“We are creating a scalable and agile environment for Project Kitty Hawk to serve new student populations with degree and credential programs,” said Fahey. “Collegis’ deep expertise across all higher education technologies allow us to bring the best-in-class solutions to Project Kitty Hawk and we are working side-by-side with their other technology partners to build a scalable, flexible and secure platform. As the project moves forward, our collaboration with Project Kitty Hawk will continue to evolve.”