Community Engagement
We help our learners develop their identities as future technologists by providing them with opportunities to access mentorship, engage with folks in tech with similar identities and experiences, and develop their awareness of the career paths available to them. We want them to know that they can succeed and we will support them. Our corporate partners and volunteers help make this possible. In 2021 we engaged 138 volunteers to provide 340 hours of mentorship, technical coaching, professional skills development and career exploration to our learners. A highlight were our 13 career exposure panels, where we welcomed groups of 2 - 4 speakers from a variety of different backgrounds and roles in tech to come share their career journeys and insights with our learners. A big thanks to BlackRock, Fastly, New Relic, Square, Tapjoy, Celigo, JPMorgan Chase, Intel, LinkedIn, ServiceNow, Moody’s, Mangrove Web Design, and LegalZoom for helping to power our volunteer efforts.
The Celigo team speaks about career opportunities to Hack the Hood Learners
The Moody’s team speaks with Hack the Hood learners.
We also engaged our corporate partners to build the tech skills and capacities of our local small business community. During Oakland Small Business month, we provided free support and resources to our local small business partners, acknowledging the increased challenges they faced during the pandemic. We matched 40 minority and women-owned small businesses with mentors in our network who provided personalized business coaching on marketing, business planning, and web design. We also engaged Wix, LegalZoom, Square and JPMC to provide free workshops in business planning, ecommerce, legal 101, and web design.