Thank you for joining Develop for Good's Sum23 Demo Day!
A recap of our inaugural Demo Day 🎉
On Thursday, August 24, 2023 Develop for Good celebrated its inaugural Summer 2023 Demo Day. This summer, we deployed nearly 400 students and mentors across 35 nonprofit tech projects. Hundreds of guests participated in our our virtual celebration of the 16 weeks of tech work our student-mentor teams accomplished for nonprofits.
118 industry professionals registered to volunteer as live Demo Day Mentors 💬
During the first 90 minutes of Demo Day, industry professionals volunteered to mock interview our college students in private sessions. After students walked through the projects they had spent the past 4 months of the summer working on, mentors provided feedback, asked follow-up questions, and helped improve their presentation and discussion skills for future professional opportunities.
Develop for Good students enjoyed networking with Demo Day Mentors, and the mentors loved learning about the students’ nonprofit tech work! We’re so grateful to our Demo Day Mentors for helping our diverse students improve their communication about their impactful technical work, and ultimately help open doors for their future careers.
🎥 We showcased our students’ tech project demo videos for a round of public voting
During the second 90 minutes of Demo Day, we showcased project demo videos of the nonprofit tech projects our student-mentor teams had devoted the summer to working on. During this interactive session, guests voted for standout project teams.
In between rounds of project demos, we also played stories of past and active Develop for Good students, mentors, and nonprofits. We aimed to demonstrate longer term outcomes of Develop for Good’s work, and to illustrate what building a more digitally equitable world together looks like.
Our featured testimonials were delivered by the following inspiring individuals who truly exuded the heart and soul of what we’re all about:
Nonprofit: Andrew So (Exec. Dir. of South Bronx United)
Students: Marcelo Morales (Johns Hopkins ‘23), Priyanka Dangol (Grinnell ‘22), Walter Broncano (Staten Island ‘23), Anish Sinha (UIUC ‘25)
Mentors: Adam Cherti (Software Engineer @ Amazon), Isabel Pinard (UX Researcher @ Google), Mega Jewell (Principal @ MEGA), Sheng Xu (Director @ BlackRock), and Shabir Irfani (Director of Software Development @ Fiserv Corp)
Couldn’t make some or all of Demo Day? Wanna watch it again? Don’t miss a single minute of our packed programming:
🎉 Congratulations to our standout project teams! 🎉
Although ALL student-mentor teams produced final real-world products for nonprofits we’re incredibly proud of, the winners of the special awards voted upon and announced live at Demo Day were:
Leadership Choice Awards:
CollAction - connects people to make collective impact. Makes actions fun & easy through sustainable monthly challenges.
Social Economy Action Research Foundation - mobilizes grassroots communities, social enterprises, and inclusive businesses as active players in the larger social economy.
Jumpstart Refugee Talent - a national, refugee-led nonprofit exclusively serving refugees seeking meaningful economic inclusion.
Outstanding Mentorship (this corporate professional mentored not one but TWO teams totaling 19 students for 16 weeks) - David Liang, Sr Software Engineer at Ally
Most Creative Demo: Jara - empowers children in under-resourced and low-internet / low-electricity communities to receive a quality education anytime, anywhere through the Jara Unit.
Most Aesthetic Demo: J*Crow - breaks barriers in economic justice for women of color who are justice impacted and involved.
Most Heartwarming Demo: Pratham Books - a nonprofit multilingual children's book publisher based in Bangalore, India with a mission to put "A Book in Every Child’s Hand.”
Most Impactful Demo - Jara
People’s Choice Award (favorite overall)- CollAction
All students, mentors, and nonprofit clients associated with each winning project receive digital certificates and e-gift cards as prizes.
Tremendous thank you to the sponsors that made this summer’s impact possible 🙏
Bloomberg
Bloomberg Philanthropies is dedicated to ensuring better, longer lives for the greatest number of people. Thank you to the Bloomberg team, led by Malia Simonds, for supporting our mission to maximize the fullest potential of nonprofits and students by leveraging technology.
PwC
PwC views its commitment to the community as a social responsibility, and is dedicated to addressing equity and opportunity gaps in society. We are grateful to PwC’s Purpose & Inclusion team, managed by Sarah Koenig, for investing in the potential of our majority underrepresented & underserved college students in tech.
ServiceNow
ServiceNow makes the world work better for everyone, and strives to enable everyone to contribute toward a more sustainable, equitable, and ethical world. We’re so incredibly appreciative of Rebecca Wang and the Global Impact team she manages for our partnership (and the donated swag for our students 👀).
Society for Science
Society for Science bolsters and supports community-driven nonprofit organizations that are working to enhance the public’s understanding of science and to increase participation of underrepresented populations in STEM fields. A huge thank you to Natalie Sutton and her DC-based team for their generous support!
Love our work? Donate 💌
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit ourselves, our program wouldn’t be what it is today without the generous philanthropic support of our community. If you love what we achieved this summer, every dollar you contribute will be dedicated to launching future batches of students, mentors, and nonprofit tech projects.
