Updating You: Bridging Tech in a Time of Change 🌱🌐🧡
We are dedicated to moving our mission forward and continuing our work in social justice.
To our incredible community: 🏡
With the back-to-school season in session, we come to you with an exciting update that defines a new chapter for The Bridging Tech Charitable Fund.
First and foremost, we, Isabel Wang and Margot Bellon, want to sincerely thank you for being a part of our Bridging Tech community since its inception three years ago – it is a community dedicated to bridging the digital divide by providing technology access and educational opportunities for students affected by homelessness. In 2020, as two undergraduate students attending Stanford University, we became more aware of the integral role of technology in educational equity when the COVID-19 pandemic shifted our classes to remote learning. We felt we needed to find a way to bring technology to students immediately.
Since then, we have had the privilege of receiving inspiring advice and immense support from our fantastic non-profit, corporate, and refurbishing partners; outstanding advisors and mentors; and dedicated volunteers and supporters. We did not expect that a few years later, thanks to your contributions, Bridging Tech would give 5,500 computers to students experiencing homelessness in 15 cities across the United States.
After three years of dedicating as much time as possible to growing our non-profit organization, we, Margot and Isabel, are stepping down as co-Executive Directors of Bridging Tech. We have both, as of August 7, embarked upon a new journey, that of attending medical school. We are honored to have the opportunity to carry forward our social impact mission toward health equity, while continuing to serve under-resourced communities through advocacy, innovation, and clinical care. At the same time, we are committed to staying meaningfully involved with Bridging Tech through supportive roles to our board and the next generation of leaders at Bridging Tech.
On this bittersweet note, we are overjoyed to introduce you to our inspiring new Executive Director, Diyana Dobberteen. A true changemaker, Diyana brings with her an abundance of experience, expertise, and passion from years of advocating for families experiencing homelessness in the nonprofit sector. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and has deep roots in California. Holding degrees from both the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of California, San Diego, as well as Fielding Graduate University, Diyana is well educated in nonprofit leadership and organization development. She has previously served as a nonprofit executive director, nonprofit consultant, development director, grants director, and adjunct faculty at Antioch University Santa Barbara. Diyana fits perfectly as Bridging Tech’s next Executive Director, since she strives to tackle the root issues of inequity and cares deeply for the communities we serve. We are very lucky to have received generous philanthropic grants, which were specifically allocated for the purpose of hiring Diyana as Bridging Tech’s first employee and creating this leadership model that will help sustain our nonprofit.
Having all worked together for the past month, we are confident and optimistic about Diyana’s vision for The Bridging Tech Charitable Fund. She will lead Bridging Tech through this period of growth with knowledge, compassion, and skillful leadership. We cannot wait for you to meet her so that you can see firsthand why we are thrilled about this new chapter.
It has been our greatest pleasure over the years to work directly with our shelter and advocacy partners, ranging from Hamilton Families in San Francisco and Toberman House in Los Angeles, to the Coalition for the Homeless in New York. Through their partnership, we have learned that our students need computers, Internet access, digital literacy training, and mentorship to fully take hold of all the gifts their education has to offer. We are grateful to our Board Chair, Mike Ghaffary; Board Treasurer, Akram Zaman; Board Secretary, Tej Srimushnam; and the rest of our Board of Directors, Adam Budgor, Nivedita Ojha, and Frank Wang, for trusting in our abilities, guiding us past roadblocks, and supporting our vision as it shifted from providing laptops to attending to the full gamut of students’ technology access needs.
Bridging Tech has been a tremendously fulfilling and at times challenging initiative, for which we have learned how to lead an entrepreneurial team, raise funds for a worthy cause, and, most importantly, collaborate within the nonprofit landscape to serve some of the most vulnerable communities. We want to thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for believing in our mission and supporting our ambitious efforts to build The Bridging Tech Charitable Fund from the ground up. Bridging Tech would not be anywhere close in impact to where it stands today without your support. Because of you, Bridging Tech now gets to continue growing and providing needed services to students across the country.
Thank you, as always, for your commitment to social justice and educational equity. Thank you for supporting our team in incredibly creative ways that have ultimately brought us closer to bridging the digital divide. We pledge to continue advocating for under-resourced communities, and, in particular, the students, families, and communities whom Bridging Tech serves.
With gratitude,
Co-Founders and Former Executive Directors
Introduction to Bridging Tech’s Deeper Impact Via Our 2023 Pilot Project 💗🌐
We are excited to have launched a new pilot program this year at Bridging Tech. Under the brilliant leadership of Tony Chun, Bridging Tech’s Intel Encore Fellow, we set out to tackle yet another area of the digital divide – Internet access. Thus far, our initial survey data show that resources offered in this pilot program are well received by the families we serve, and while we are still waiting to collect post-program data, we are optimistic about the project’s meaningful impact on students affected by homelessness.
Our goal is to pair the personal computers that we provide with free mobile hotspots for Internet access, as well as career night and digital literacy workshops. As part of this Diyana Dobberteen and Tony Chun co-hosted Bridging Tech’s career night workshop with Hamilton Families in San Francisco, California in August 2023. This idea arose as we noted that our students face challenges with access to reliable Internet. From our shelter partners, we have learned that students’ Wi-Fi connections in their home shelters are often impacted by high levels of demand, making it difficult to join video calls or frustrating to use when tackling assignments. In addition, students in temporary housing, away from main shelter buildings, may not have available Wi-Fi at all. For many of the families we serve, Wi-Fi is also no longer easily accessible or installable once they leave shelter housing, despite special rate reductions provided by a pandemic-initiated federal Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).
As of August 2023, we have 30 families enrolled in our hotspot pilot program. We provide each student with:
Technology: An individualized laptop that is theirs to keep forever.
Internet Connectivity: One year of Internet access via a mobile hotspot service contract.
Support: An IT Hotline with a toll-free phone number and email contact for any questions that arise surrounding our provided technology.
Digital Literacy Training: Connecting families to free online classes for basic computer orientation, help using their devices, and support building their digital literacy skills.
Our effort to provide hotspots free of charge is conducted in partnership with three amazing Bridging Tech recipient sites: Hamilton Families in San Francisco, CA; Next Door Solutions for Domestic Violence in San Jose, CA; and the Global Impact Initiative in Austin, TX. We would love to expand our program following positive research/data, as our students’ Internet access needs – collected in collaboration with our shelter partners – currently exceed the limited spots available in our pilot program. For example, at the Global Impact Initiative, 200 families entered themselves in the lottery for ten spots.
With more funding for devices and Wi-Fi connections, we hope to serve even more students, and we will seek opportunities to expand on the lessons of the pilot. In subsequent newsletters, we will share our progress and comments from participants that we have received in response to our electronic questionnaires.
Coming Soon 🍁
In September, Bridging Tech will launch our fall campaign. Please look out for more news!
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