Roles: Impact Strategy, Project Management, Messaging, Fundraising, Partnerships

Impact: General Assembly’s social impact programs and partnerships have helped thousands of underemployed adults earn new careers in technology.

More: Technology companies have a huge impact on our everyday lives, but the companies that make these increasingly important decisions about our lives don’t look like the rest of America. Less than 10% of the technology workforce is Black or Latinx, only about a quarter is women, and most companies focus recruitment on elite institutions where students come from privileged socioeconomic circumstances.

General Assembly is a global technology education company that specializes in today’s most in-demand skills, like web development, design, and data science. The founders of General Assembly knew that their model could have a big impact on making Silicon Valley look more like the rest of America. As such, they charged our social impact team with designing programs, partnerships, and campaigns that extended the company’s mission to find new ways to bring new people into the technology industry through education.

I helped develop new initiatives that extended the reach of our model and engaged our community in this work. For example, I worked on two rapid response social impact projects that quickly mobilized the company to respond to real-world events. With administrations changing in Washington, General Assembly wanted to ensure that policymakers in DC continued to prioritize federal investment in STEM education. Through a partnership with The Webby Awards and Fusion, we developed a campaign called Pledge for the Future to support Black Girls Code. We encouraged our alumni and community to become a member of the organization and fight for expanded STEM education, and we donated $1 for every individual who did.

As the public conversation was turning against refugees and immigrants across the globe, I spearheaded a new project to commit to expanding our programs for free to refugees and immigrants. This entailed forging new partnerships with organizations like IRC and creating community dinners for local refugees at General Assembly campuses around the country.