Develop for Good - March 2024
Spring update
Hello friends 🐣
With Easter right around the corner, we’re egg-cited to hop right into our Spring updates!
Last call for Sum24 applications 📣
Develop for Good’s upcoming Summer 2024 project batch runs from May 5 - August 24, 2024 with the tentative timeline:
Wed, Apr 3: Sum24 Student Application & Mentor Application due
Mon, Apr 15: Last day to submit a late Nonprofit Project Proposal
Mon, Apr 22 - Fri, May 3: Offer letter period for Students & Mentors - new offer letters sent out every 2 days with a 48-hour response deadline.
Sun, May 5: Sum24 batch kicks off with Orientation & Onboarding week
Sun, May 12: Project scoping phase begins
Sun, Jun 9: Project development phase begins
Sun, Aug 11: Project documentation & handover period
Thu, Aug 22: Demo Day
Sat, Aug 24: Last day of project batch
Successful end to our Win24 project batch 🎉
From November 2023 - February 2024, Develop for Good engaged:
379 tech volunteers (321 college students and 58 industry mentors)
31 nonprofit tech projects
Est. 34K hours of technical work
Est. $1.5M of costs saved for nonprofits
Special thank you to our impact partner Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) for galvanizing corporate volunteers to join our Winter 2024 Demo Day! HPE volunteer mentors mock-interviewed our diverse college students on their real-world nonprofit tech projects. We’re beyond grateful to HPE volunteers for improving our students’ technical discussion skills for future professional opportunities 🙏
Nonprofit tech project highlight 🌟
Readeezy Literacy: bringing a digital library for struggling readers to smartphones
Readeezy Literacy a New Jersey nonprofit with a vision to create an entire library of books for teen and young adult struggling readers for their enjoyment. The books (full of images, animations, and activities) are designed to increase motivation to read, reading frequency, the types of books read, and overall engagement. The Develop for Good student team redesigned and developed a dynamic mobile version of the website, allowing users to engage with the library on handheld devices. Read the project case study here.
The team
Product & Engineering Manager: Jeremy Kwok (Stony Brook ‘27)
Engineers: Aditi Kumar (UIUC ‘27), Alice Nguyen (Concordia ‘25), Daniela Cuevas (University of Washington ‘24), Naveen Ramesh (ASU ‘24), Stephen Mwingira (CUNY Brooklyn ‘24), Woongjin Jang (UMich ‘25)
Team Mentor: Yichen Jiang (Software Engineer at Amazon Robotics)
What the nonprofit client had to say:
"We were in dire need of a responsive version of our digital library for use on phones. As a new [nonprofit] start-up with an infinitesimal budget, we were not able to do this on our own. Along came DFG and all of a sudden, we had a beautiful product! The team was so supportive and reliable. They were well organized by Jeremy Kwok who was outstanding in keeping everyone on task and maintaining a positive and supportive environment. We are featuring photos and LinkedIn links of the entire team on our website with a shout-out for their wonderful work."
- Maria Cleary, President of Readeezy Literacy
Volunteer spotlights: Win24 stories 💡
Lyton Mhlanga, a Computer Science freshman at Vanderbilt University, worked with his team to redesign Be A Geek, Inc.’s mobile app this winter. After four months of furthering the nonprofit’s mission of encouraging and enabling Black students and professionals to excel in STEM careers, Lyton shared the following about his experience on the tech project:
“DFG has been a phenomenal experience and a key highlight of how enjoyable and fulfilling it is to work on products that have a positive impact in their societies. Working with talented, passionate students gave me a unique chance to learn from other students and also a chance for me to inspire them through my own talents and dedication to the program. I will be forever grateful for this opportunity and look for to further encounters with DFG in the future.”
Alok Tibrewala is a Software Engineer II at Deutsche Bank. This winter, he served as a Mentor on the Be A Geek project. When asked about his experience from the mentoring side, Alok told us:
“I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with Develop for Good and watching my team and mentees work on the project successfully. It has been an honour to be able to give back to the community and at the same time learn from them. Thank you for providing such an amazing platform!”
Welcome to our newest Board Directors 🎊
This quarter, we welcomed two new inspiring leaders to our Board of Directors!
Kristen Swanson is the Head of Design at Okta. A lifelong educator, she is the founder of Edcamp, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing free, organic professional learning opportunities worldwide. In 2015, Edcamp was recognized as a Top 10 most innovative company in education by Fast Company.
Justin Tinker was the student lead for Develop for Good’s first ever nonprofit tech project back in April 2020, and is a BS & MS Computer Science grad from Stanford University. Now an Applied ML Engineer at Cofactr (and former Software Engineer intern at Uber and Cloudflare), Justin helps orgs use data to make informed decisions.
We’re excited to leverage both new Directors’ expertise to further our mission for good 🤍
Develop for Good in the news 🌐
Read the articles we’re featured in here ⬇️
🗞️ The Washington Post: Stuck at home during COVID-19, Gen Z started charities
📰 The Chronicle of Philanthropy: Gen Z is open to nonprofit careers, but on their own terms
Special thank you to journalist Ben Gose for covering our story 🥳
Virtual community 💟
Last month, Develop for Good hosted its first Color of Tech Panel! 🎨 Our session focused on diversity in tech spaces and particularly the lack of representation when it comes to African American and LatinX communities. Our incredible panelists were technologists representing various communities of color, and shared their experiences in the tech industry and their ideas for paths forward.
🎥 Watch the full recorded panel here!
IRL community 💜
Meaningful connections made irl this winter! With summer right around the corner, we’re excited for opportunities to have some fun under the sun ☀️
Support our work 💌
Our program wouldn’t be what it is today without the generous philanthropic support of our community. If you love what we do, every dollar you contribute is dedicated to continuously improving our program for our tech students and nonprofit partners.