 Well, welcome everyone to our tech internship and careers for a good webinar that we are hosting today with All Tech Is Human in Tekolo. My name is Anmei Chung and I am Director of Teaching and Learning Tech Initiative at New America and I will be moderating this panel today. I'm going to briefly introduce our guest speaker and panelists and then move into Q&A with our guest speaker and then with our panelists too as well and we will end with some open Q&A from you all that you can post into the site and we will respond to as many questions as possible and then we will also put together a list of resources that I know people are going to mention during this webinar out after the webinar too as well. So with that let me do a quick introduction of our guest speakers. We have Chike Ogue who is, his list of expertise is so long that I'm not even going to get started so he's basically worked from in the public and the private sector. He's even started his own non-profit organization. He is a wealth of information as well as has so many good things to share about you know being an entrepreneur as well as being a civil servant too as well. So we're looking forward to having that conversation with Chike. In addition we also have, let's see next slide please. After this we're going to have a panel we'll have Elsa. Oh go back one slide please. There thank you. Elsa from Schmidt Futures. She's going to talk to us a little bit about Tekolo and what it does and we also have Sarah W from All Tech is Human who has really been supporting a lot of the folks who are looking for careers in this sector and is well versed in this and we have Shivam who is one of the co-founders of Build for Good. Sarah Sushman is actually Sarah S because we have two Sarah's was one of our first Build for Good interns and we'll talk about her experience and Milo who is a current Build for Good intern too as well who will answer some questions. So with that we will take the slides down and start with a conversation with Chike. So I encourage you all to get your questions ready for folks but the first thing I want to ask Chike is that you know I look at you and I think you must be like 80 because you've done so much in your life. So if you could tell us a little bit about like how and why you got into tech and how you got started and talk a little bit about like you know all the different sectors you work in but we can first start with like how and why you got into tech. Sure first of all thank you to the organizers for putting this together. This is not easy so I really want to thank folks and as well as for folks who are here today I think it's just an important conversation. I think for me and I am probably an unusual tech person if you can even call me that and then I am not technical I was a political science major. I have a few as with degrees none of them are in technology and I think in some ways I came to technology in a roundabout way partially because I had deep knowledge and experience with a particular set of problems so I started my career after undergrad actually in the education space I was actually I was an official in the New York City public school system I was a teacher in New York City I was a teacher abroad in South in Southeast Asia and really spent graduate school studying how how do we ideally fix and improve and update and modernize the education system that really hits so many students and workers and learners across the country who are not getting what they want to out of education that was a problem in which I deeply care when I came out of graduate school I ended up because I thought I didn't want to spend time in the private sector I ended up going to a technology company and went to a company at that time called the advisory board that was in health care in an higher education it's been kind of bought and sold and repackaged a number of times since then since the decade that I was there but I was a corporate strategy guy and I basically was doing a lot of market analysis looking around at things we could buy sell and probably a year after I joined I ended up pivoting into helping to launch a product and then became a product manager a sales leader and from there I began to have this inkling of there are technologies a tool to solve a bunch of problems that I cared about and my gut is you could put technology almost any problem and it's an accelerator use the right way also use I also learned was use the wrong way it actually creates more problems that it solves and so I think learning that that technology can is a tool and can help you get to go fast on the things that you care about was really powerful and then from there I kind of took that learning to the nonprofit space actually where you and I first met when I was running everyone on focus on the broadband access we created a number of digital tools to make people who are underserved be aware of affordable internet options because we believe back in 2015 the internet was a gateway to opportunity and the pandemic I think taught that to all of us very painfully then from there actually went to the consulting space where I worked with a number of technology companies around the world are not organizational change and things like that and then fast forward a little bit I ended up as the chief innovation officer at the U.S. Department of Labor effectively the top kind of SME on technology side subject matter expert advisor on emerging technologies from AI to cyber to want them to XR to the secretary and then also trying to figure out how to apply those to help people interact with my department better so how do you make the unemployment insurance application process far less painful how do you make it so the data that we have in all these disparate places actually can come together and help us create insights to better help people so I would say I came to technology because I had knowledge and experience and care about a particular problem and by happenstance I began to see that technology applied a certain way can actually be helpful and to be honest I think the thing that probably helped me along the way was less having the answers but more so being able to ask the right questions of technologists to put so that I could hopefully get the right answers and then also realizing technologists and technology by itself doesn't get you the whole way you still need strategy you still need marketing you still need distribution all these things that make things run and you also need and I've learned this from some of the most gifted technologists is you have to design around your customer is this human-centered design is this lean this is agile all these methodologies that came to the technology space but it actually are really powerful when applied outside of technology whatever the problem might be so I think I came to it because I gave it a problem saw it's examples and then saw some of these associated methodologies that are powerful within the tech space but also outside so that's how I've ended up as a technology person definitely didn't plan on it but I'm glad I'm here and you know when you think about the the different roles that you've played what characteristics do you think that you have that made you unique for these different positions like what what was it about you with no tech background that people said you know what we want him on our team he may not know tech but he understands like x y and z like what was it about you in particular what particular skill set did you have that's a great question you'd have to ask the presidential personnel office totally this question but I think on my best days let me let me let me let me say it like that I think the things that made that made me useful I think one because I didn't get tech I had to have time to say no just tell me how this works this I had to tell that I have to make people talk very slowly to tell me how this thing works and I would always say say hypotheticals if I wanted to do this could I oh no tell me why what what version what how much of that could I do and so I always kind of push the bounds of technology and so much because of my ignorance because of the way that people things were and I had no shame about asking those questions so one I made people stop and explain things that was number one I think number two I was at the Department of Labor and that was a space I knew well I knew workforce development particularly and I actually had done work around service design human center design previously so I was able to push at times and say all right this technology I mean one thing I see about technologists at times is I know a lot of technologists who really love technology so what they'll do is they'll build technology of what I call the power user the person who wants all the features all the stuff and then you get it and you know the thing has has had a million buttons but where are the five buttons that this person actually wants and so I was able at times that you know what all those features are great they don't need that I just need those five things and they need to be super streamlined super easy and so I would I think I had a knowledge of the problem and of the customer and then I think thirdly on my best days I would just be quiet and listen whether it be to a customer whether it be to people who were in the room one thing I said the day that I laughed was my best days at the Department of Labor were not implementing any of my own ideas in fact those are some of my toughest days the days that were really good was when someone said something whether it be around an implementation whether it be a civil servant who had an idea or an insight and then realize that was important and then try and clear things bureaucratically out of their way so that they could be successful so I think I would say those things in some ways me not being a technologist was really helpful and it also reinforced that it's an ecosystem again like you know if you go to any company like Amazon's not just programmers it's not it would the whole company would fall down if that was it they're all these other things that make technology successful and useful and if I would say anything to the folks who are going to be watching this it is that almost no matter who you are again I'm a political science major who uh like I literally didn't write code till like probably two or three years ago um but was able to be useful and add value to a technological process partially because there's a problem that I knew it that I cared about and I was I think of my best days humble enough to realize what I didn't know great so what do you think is that can you explain like for you what the difference is between like the tech industry and the tech for good space um it's a good question I think there are a lot of similar there are a lot of similarities um I would say the the biggest difference is how do you measure success in the tech industry it is an industry therefore your success is profit net income revenue in the public space it is much harder I'll give you an example um when I went I went into government uh the big problem that we had to deal with as a department was unemployment insurance and unemployment insurance just to give a sense uh during the pandemic we dramatically expanded unemployment insurance benefits rightfully so because so many people were in an economically bad place just to put it in perspective we give an 850 billion dollars almost a trillion dollars what third of the American workforce in 12 months um in many ways the program performed really admirably in other ways it ran into a lot of issues in a lot of states the huge increase in demand crashed websites crashed entire systems people waited weeks months years to get money that they were owed you had as well um from a customer experience point of view depending on who you were you didn't have the same experience we saw very lately in our data if you were in a union if you were older and frankly if you were white you were more likely to get benefits than if you weren't which as a public every week we that's an outcome that we shouldn't accept that none of us should really accept thirdly we had integrity issues because of change we had we had to make in the program and allowed frankly some nefarious actors to abscond with dollars that weren't theirs so we had to figure how do you fix all that at scale um and so for some people the outcome was get people to check as quickly as possible that's success well I could do that by not asking them anything and just throwing money out the window but I could do that that could be success but there's other people who said no no no success is no dollar goes to anyone it shouldn't go to well easy there's a way to do that just don't give anyone money so negotiating what success is is I think the biggest issue in defining that at the front end is so important it's always important but I would argue not doing that in the public sector is fatal I think all of us who work on technology probably you know projects you come up with your requirements documents and things like that but in the public sector it is fatal if you don't do that I think secondly there are far more stakeholders you know when I came in you know I was I was sworn and Joe Biden was sworn in at 12 o'clock I was sworn in at 2 30 about three years ago I was told that my computer on by three and all of a sudden I had meetings I had I had even set foot in the building I had meetings with the White House Congress members members of my 15,000 person agency a bunch of outside groups I never met before because and again it's always that is different if you're in a company your stakeholders yes you have stakeholders but in the end it's your internal colleagues it's your customers it's potentially your board and your governance and maybe if you're publicly traded the street or if you're private you're your investors much smaller universe and they all have they all have opinions and they all have power for you and so figuring out how you manage all that to get to the end result which is how do I deliver for the customer which from my view is the are the Americans who vote for us pay for pay for us and we are responsible for serving that is what's far more challenging than when I was in the private sector so those numbers give us one perspective basically working for far many more people in the oh yeah no I mean I mean be our companies who operate at that scale but the other thing I'll say this is the last thing is the the locus of perceived responsibility is different and here's what I mean by that if there's a hurricane somewhere no one calls amazon that says what are you gonna do if there is a you know a snowstorm no one calls google says what are you gonna do but for each of those things literally the next day I had a meeting to say what are we gonna do about the hurricane that just happened in Puerto Rico because the Department of Labor gives out emergency unemployment insurance benefits so we have to move and we realize very quickly oh shoot the website's not going to work because all the internet's been knocked out across the entire island that week so we have to figure out another option and so that's another thing that is very important they were meeting at times I was like wow where we are I mean if we're not responsible then who is and so I think that is for me that was really exciting on some days it was a bit intimidating but that is a another huge difference between those two spaces so what keeps you motivated in your career path I think for me it's the that base set of problems I mean for those of you who know me and and and I may notice this you know my family is a very classic immigrant story to this country my family is from a village in Nigeria that most Nigerians themselves will never go to and never see my none of my grandparents went past middle school my parents had Peace Corps volunteers in their classrooms they are the streets that were born on were unpaid then they're unpaid now and they got to come to America because of American higher education American economic opportunity and they had me and my siblings and I got to work for an American president that's a amazing but very unlikely economic arc for a family in America and I've tried to dedicate myself to replicating that for as many others as possible that's why I care about this is that set of problems that keeps me motivated and I would argue for anyone who's in this space particularly if you're going to go into the type for a good space you are knowledge of and care about the problem is what's going to keep you going I think about my colleagues who were who when I when I came in the government this was this was January of 2021 we were they had just started giving up vaccines the month before we actually didn't we didn't even know if they really worked we were all sitting I sat in this chair for 20 hours a day but my colleagues were working on COVID rollout testing we're working on giving out the paycheck protection program to keep businesses open the restaurant program that basically kept the restaurants I'm going to lay off everybody where they could I mean that trust me what got them going was not ones and zeros what got them going was like oh wow there are people who are going to be helped by what I do and that's why they stayed up for so long and worked so hard and so that's what I would say particularly if you're going to be in the type for good space know the problem and particularly if you can get out there and see the people and have enough of the abstractions but actually be people that's going to keep you going that's going to keep you motivated and that's what's going to get your juices going to figure out okay I've got to figure this out whatever the this is so one last question for you in this in this in this section what kind of advice do you have for someone who's just starting to explore careers in this tech for good sector great question one going back to the problem be good at the problem understanding the problem that you want to solve the problem is not a technology problem technology is a tool understand the problem and get out so I call the front line of the problem if you care about how do I help refugees or coming from pick your country Ukraine Afghanistan go go go to a processing center go meet families who have been recently do that and do it often because it's easy particularly when you're in government to get far away from that and no and it's almost described being governments like being a submarine at times you know things are happening but you can't quite see them because of the the structure of government I think that's one I think two whatever you're good at be really good at you know I was never going to be the best coder in the building absolutely not I am I barely know enough to be to be dangerous there were certain things I was good I'm a business strategy guy oh I always happen you want to get get like get me in front of a white board I'm pretty good I am I've always I was actually a sales guy I was also generally pretty good explaining things to a lay audience I got good at that I knew again my issues and problems from a substance perspective be good at that be two or three standard deviations better at that than normal people and then everything else know who is so that they can be on your team which is that last part having the humility and the self-knowledge to know who else needs to be on the team because you're never going to do it by by yourself and in fact the people who go in the public sector and try and do that go down in not even a blaze of glory a blaze of infamy because not only do you fail yourself you actually take a project which could have helped a lot of people so being able to build that team around you of people who are also two or three standard deviations better at something that than others that's how you get to to success well thank you cheeky that is a great set of advice and motivating stories for everybody not you know not just on this panel but on the call too as well and so I want to turn to Elsa and ask Elsa to tell us a little bit about what Tekolo is and how we get more people into this tech for good sector yeah for sure so Tekolo kind of a confusing name but it's called T-K-A-L-O and you can find on Tekolo.org so it's basically a platform that matches tech workers to social impact organizations so we launched this past June so it's still pretty new I've been leading this program for about two years and I've been doing a lot of research in kind of the the problem space around getting more tech talent into the social impact space so yeah the reason why we started this whole platform was basically by talking to a lot of people who were looking for these types of roles it was really hard to find them they didn't know where to look like for example I myself studied computer science at Georgia Tech when I was trying to find my first job like it was mostly the tech industry and big tech that were being surfaced to me on anything from career first newsletters LinkedIn all that kind of stuff and I didn't know where to go to find those social impact roles so since then there have been a few job boards that were created for example Altex Human has a great job board tech jobs for good which kind of do a great job about about like kind of consolidating these roles but you still have the problem of you need to apply to a bunch of jobs separately so you fill out hundreds of applications and maybe you can mark from like a couple of them which can be a frustrating experience so that's how we came up with Tekolo which is basically a common application for the social impact opportunities so you go on the website you find one application where you tell us about your skill set experience and what type of roles you're interested in and then you get assigned to a talent connector who will then review that application and try to find the right matches for you so since June we've had 140 opportunities submitted to us from a bunch of different organizations in the space looking for these talents and we've had over 4,000 candidates who have applied for these roles which is really exciting to see all the interest out there so yeah basically once you fill out an application the talent connector has a match for you they'll reach out and if you're interested in the role they'll kind of do a career screen with you and then assuming there is a fit between you and the organization then we'll introduce you directly so that way you kind of get the human connection aspect of it as well. Is there a fee for this service? Great question no it is a free service for both candidates and organizations and yeah we actually launched this in partnership with three other organizations Altacus Human who you'll hear from Sarah here as well US Digital Response they focus on local and state government opportunities and Fast Forward which is a tech non-profit accelerator. Great and what do you think non-profits are looking for you know you you clearly have have you know spoken with them and gotten a lot of them engaged but what do you think you know if you could categorize them what what are the kinds of things they're looking for in a potential employee? Yeah for sure um so non-profits are in great need of tech talents I would say now more than ever so now it's a great time to get into this space um there are uh by working at a non-profit it's uh you get a great opportunity of kind of working on it to cause that you really care about having more ownership of a project while building your skill set which is really fun and yeah I would say some things non-profits are looking for are one because their teams tend to be a lot smaller they're looking for people who want to have that ownership of a project they want more responsibility they want to have be able to define things decide on the technical architecture well maybe even making some product decisions themselves so they're looking for people with experience in that for example someone that has worked at a startup before could be a good fit because of that they're looking for people who are passionate in the cause area that the non-profit is working on particularly a lot of them are looking for people with relevant lived experiences kind of have that knowledge and they know what the problem space is so they actually know how to go about addressing it and they have access to the the users that they're trying to build the product for um the third thing is most non-profits are not working on cutting-edge technology by no means they're mostly focused on kind of utilizing existing technologies and tools that are out there and figuring ways to connect those maybe build some stuff on top of that so it's mostly focused on finding the right solution for a problem versus like building some cool tech just to say that you build some cool tech so that's one thing to flag and then if you want to work at a non-profit you should be you should understand that that's the case and kind of be interested in that I will say a lot of non-profits because they're looking for people who have a bit more experience sometimes they have some expectations around like the years of experience that you've had working and the type of experience that you've had so I've seen a lot of non-profits have kind of like a four years of experience cut off so anything below that can be a bit tough since you don't get the mentorship and support that you may need and last two things I'll call out one you should be able to kind of thrive both working independently but also part of a group so sometimes you may be if you're a software engineer you may be the only software engineer on the team so you need to be able to kind of work on your own but also be able to collaborate with all your I guess cross functional partners and the last piece is people are non-profits usually wear multiple hats so for example again as an engineer you may be the only full stack engineer but you also have to do DevOps and QA and like coordinate with a bunch of people which in the tech industry you likely won't have to do a lot of that and I would say Chike you should jump in having been in these spaces before to offer any advice in terms of what you know Elsa is sharing because I I think Elsa is exactly right she said it really well it requires ownership and flexibility you're going to be you know when I ran a non-profit we were a team of 25 and you basically have to at some ways times be a whole team in and of yourself the other the other the other thing that I would say is you it requires you I think to be on top of any tools that can increase your productivity and again when I read my non-profit in 2015 I think about even just some of the very elementary AI power tools that exist now we had none of those but thinking but you have to be a master of those because you likely will not be able to bring on additional personnel to help you uh you are you so you're you can have to figure out yourself among you and your small teams I agree with everything that she that she said and I also say just to reiterate something that she said you being close enough to the work of the organization is really important I've seen some non-profits where the tech person is kind of over here on the side and the program work is over there that's a mistake you will not build what you need to if you are not intimately involved with the problem I say the same thing be out you know be on site meet the customers be in those programming meetings just to know what's going on this you'll just build a better product in many ways your program colleagues are your your customers as well and you so you just got to be close to that front line but I agree with everything that that Elsa said it resonates with my experience as a non-profit CEO great um Sarah W um I'm sure a lot of the folks who are listening are saying like how do you get your resume or application notice there's 4 000 you know Elsa said like how do you end up being one of the 100 plus that gets noticed that's a great question um one I get a lot um and a lot of people struggle with that especially you know trying to figure out how to get um their resume notice passed like an applicant tracking system that's you know these systems that are just reading your resume not a person or even when a person is reading them how do you like get noticed in this huge pile because sometimes these jobs will get like I mean you can see on LinkedIn like a job will say you know 500 people also applied and you're like great like what so what do I do um so you know I look at a lot of resumes through Tekolo and I'm just kind of kind of give some like high level advice on this because there's so much more that can be said about resumes I mean this could be like a whole separate webinar um and uh I mean this kind of goes for anybody not just people looking to move into the social impact space but um you know really anyone and my biggest piece of advice I think is that um you don't necessarily or not necessarily you you definitely don't want anyone looking at your resume to have to read between the lines um you want to spell things out for them um this can be really hard to nail and it takes some practice and a lot of iterating and different versions of your resume to get it right especially when you're starting out and you're just kind of trying to figure out what it is exactly you want to do and you're still trying to figure out your trajectory um but you know people like me who are looking at resumes all day we're looking for keywords to see if you're a fit for a job and so especially and you'll see this advice a lot you know like this is this is pretty pretty standard but it's important um you know we'll be looking for keywords that are in the job description um and if we don't see those keywords or the system we're using doesn't see them um your resume is going to get overlooked so like think about you know um if just to use a like very basic example let's say we're recruiting for a software engineer and and I don't see the word software engineer any anywhere in your resume um like you know you're probably not going to get a second look because we just sort of need to know on the you know a high level how you're a fit um and you need to spell that out for people um and that can also be really hard when you're trying to to pivot and you know turn past experience into other experience but you know when you're applying for a job I would just look really closely at the job description and pull out keywords that that job is looking for that you can fit into your resume um somehow as it aligns with your experience um and I would also say you want to you know make sure that your resume is presenting like a relative value proposition so you know this means that every job you apply to your resume might look a little bit different it might be customized for that job you know if you're sending out you're not getting um your resume ever noticed but you're sending just the same resume out wildly to a bunch of different positions um it's not going to be tailored enough and that that kind of goes with the whole keyword advice um what else do I want to say about this I feel like I could go on and on I would say that like having a summary section in your resumes is really good and hits all of these points um you know I'm happy to answer other questions that are are more um specific but I'll I'll kind of I think I'll I'll leave it at that for now for the resumes um and we can move on what do you think is the best way to get noticed on social media and what's the best social media to get noticed on do you think you mentioned uh yeah yeah I mean I would sorry I didn't mean to cut you off go ahead you're good how do you get noticed um yeah LinkedIn LinkedIn is kind of like the place now for job stuff I mean I live on there um you know it it makes it easy uh for you to connect with other people um and to see uh you know especially when you're getting started um my advice for LinkedIn would be like LinkedIn makes it really easy to just kind of lurk around and see what other people are doing what they're talking about um you know who they're connected with and so I mean I know when I was getting started I just you know connected with some people who I kind of knew and grew my network and just sort of saw and took note of what other people were doing on there um and I think uh you know that can be really helpful and then eventually moving up to a point where you can create your own content on there um you know there has to be something that you're good at um everybody has something that's like their you know special thing and it can be you know a really good idea to actually like create content around that thing um it could even just be like sharing a news article and writing a little something about it um you could also be like commenting and interacting with other people's stuff um and that you know just starting off small and going from there is is like a good way to just build up a presence and a network and um get noticed and that can be really helpful um I think in this day and age especially with how the how competitive everything is you know it's it's like all about your network so GK I um because you are a LinkedIn contact for me I notice like you're one of the people who um regularly gets like hundreds of likes oh yeah you're on top of my analytics you're better than than than than me I think that everything that Sarah W said is is is very right I mean I think how will I say this um you know when when I'm older than some people who I'm sure are gonna are gonna watch this I remember when social media like first came out it was like oh man this is where I go and I bear my soul and I think out loud it's not really that in the end it's a place where I I think you are looking to let the world know what you're looking to do and I think kind of thinking about kind of what you put out there um from whether it be just what's in your profile to the content that you put out so the things you comment on you're kind of putting out there a value proposition about yourself hey here's the value that I think that I can bring and you want to reinforce that continually not just to your resume but to your profile to your content to your comments and um I have been surprised that the people who have like quote-unquote found me uh just by like I didn't mean to be found I just there are things I care about that I post relentlessly about and it's and it can be you know in marketing you talk about push marketing and pull marketing which is when you know push being where you just try to span people you're trying to get in people's faces and then there's pull marketing where you bring people to you and we and you the right way social media can be a method of pull marketing for yourself uh and so I do encourage people to like Sarah said be thoughtful about what you put up and think about if someone were to see what I just put up does it get me closer or farther away from the role the work the projects that I want to be doing that I think are part of my purpose great advice um I'm gonna move on to our next part which is about internships for college students but I want to encourage people who are listening to send your questions in um as because we will go into q and a very shortly in terms of answering your questions so I want to turn this over to Shivam who is one of the co-founders of build for good and ask him to just give us a brief overview of what it is yeah um so build for good is an internship program for technical students we're passionate about working on something more driven more mission driven or with the social cause so the way it works is we uh look at college students and look at you know what are they passionate about what are their skills what are they interested in working on um from the technical side but also from a social cause side and we also look at nonprofits that are asking for technical support and we basically match them uh and um you know this started in 2020 when the pandemic first began because a lot of students were losing their internships and a lot of nonprofits were trying to figure out how to turn their operations virtual and we figured hey why don't we just bridge that gap these students are looking for technical experiences and these uh nonprofits are looking for uh someone with technical skills uh why don't we just bridge that gap and we kept it going each summer and this is actually our fifth year uh fifth cohort um and we kept it going each year because we noticed that a lot of students really liked the opportunity to work with nonprofits uh it's something that I as a computer science student myself uh was looking for uh through college actually how I met on me uh and then on top of it it's uh a lot of nonprofits really appreciated the opportunity to have that sort of technical experience while also uh build for good kind of provided a lot of the program support that a traditional internship often has right so um also kind of mentioned you know one that nonprofits are often stretched right then uh and uh and you know have a four-year cutoff experience to work in the nonprofit space often and so we found that when we provide that support um it can often help alleviate that sort of pain for nonprofits but then also provide a lot of support uh and guidance for students so in terms so that's built for good at a high level in terms of the program structure itself I'll briefly touch on that as well um it isn't just focused on being you know your standard internship where you're just working on a project um it is really focused on on getting students actually thinking deeply about uh the work that they're working on and and on top of that uh providing the students with mentorship uh providing them with the structure of an internship uh and on top of that we provide students with a slot community we have an in-person convening in DC uh weekly check-ins and uh as well as co excuse me speakers as well uh to come in and talk about things such as human center design how to think about the problem space that you're working in and and how to really question about the work uh that you're working on so that's a little bit about built for good um any questions on that feel free to put that in the chat um but yeah thank you and Sarah you were uh Sarah S you were in our first cohort we didn't even know it was a cohort we just scrambled to match people who were interested with nonprofits and thought we should just do this um and um and you came to us as one of those uh potential interns um can you um tell us what you are doing now but also um what's different about the build for good experience than other internships that you had done absolutely um so right now what I do is I work for uh clean tech um clean energy um and I work in project development so more on the business side but sort of you know adjacent to the tech that we developed um in terms of how how that experience measures up against others I would say it it was a lot more holistic um I think uh you know there was a much bigger picture going on and there were more resources for sort of like how is this um you know how how am I growing from this how am I like how is an experience for me rather than just for this company um I think other internships that I've done since filled for good um it's it felt a lot more like you know am I an asset like am I worth keeping um whereas with filled for good it was a lot more about like how can we help each other um and and you know it felt like it's like a matchmaking in terms of um but yeah I would say generally it it felt a lot more holistic and and supported and how did um the um build for good experience help you sort of determine what you wanted to do you know um when you graduated um I think my experience was a little bit interesting because um part of one of the internships that I was paired with was very tech heavy it was you know GIS mapping um stuff that I had learned in school um the other experience that I or the other partner that I worked with um it was a lot more um you know project management based um and those I think are two really different trajectories that I could have done with what I majored in which was sustainability um and it really gave me you know the opportunity to see those two sides um and to kind of get my foot in the door and put a label on my trajectory um that I think helped you know my resume get recognized a little bit better than than somebody who maybe has like research experience or like school experience um and doesn't really know how to like brand it and um you know why do you why do you keep coming back and helping um I really we really appreciate it I I love it it I think it's really refreshing work um I don't work in a nonprofit um and you know I love my job but it's very different um you know it's it's fun to come back and um it makes me feel good and it's a great community. Milo you are um um have been an intern a bill for good intern for a while um but what's been unique about your build for good experience? Hi so first of all hello and um I definitely resonate with Sarah's words um it felt like build for good kind of gave me roots to grow from and what like if I had to like pick one element that stuck out to me the most is the cohort experience um it's not often that so wait to explain this every time uh every time there is every summer there is this cohort and within the cohort we're all working kind of linked up with different organizations and we all get to meet with each other and essentially develop skills uh listen to speakers and I I remember my first time at Build for Good I was taken aback because I was like I've never been in an environment like this where we are all kind of at the same step and all able to grow and learn together especially when it comes to professional development and just being really honest about the place you are at and the trajectory you want to have when it comes to especially like really technical um tech skills or being able to develop your own professional career and having a network of people that are all at the same place as you kind of like felt like a support system it felt like kind of having weight taken off your back and it really motivated me to keep coming back to Build for Good and you are now a junior correct at NYU um how is it shaping you know your experience with Build for Good and the things you've worked on shaping what you're thinking about your future career it's definitely like flipped everything on its head um I came from the perspective that um if you're studying engineering or any engineering um adjacent like design oriented field you're going to work in tech uh you're going to work in a for-profit field and that's kind of like where you're going to come out uh after four years of like of a bachelor degree um and then I saw Build for Good and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to join but and I saw that there was tech roles in different sectors that were actually having a lot more ownership and a lot more impact and the skills that essentially everybody else was learning in school and it basically has opened my eyes to the possibility of working in the nonprofit field uh with the background of web development full stack development being a UI UX designer and being able to contribute with kind of just the principles of human-centered design that's great okay we are gonna move into Q&A um so please send your questions into that we have we have a question here um uh I'll just actually read it because the compliment to us is hi I'll thank you all for the excellent advice I was wondering if you have any recommendations for career changers in terms of what to include on a resume I could take this one uh but I mean it's very I would say it's like very dependent to your um background um there is a really good book called Pivot I think the author is Jenny Blake um I would look at that book um I found it really helpful for myself um it just kind of goes through like you know everything you need to know to do that um from somebody who's done that and who's also like helped other people pivot um so that's a really good resource um and then I mean when it comes to resumes um I would you know just kind of look at what you've done so far um and you know have a good picture of where you want to go and be able to highlight in your resume from the background that you want to pivot from like relevant experience to the next thing even if it's like something really small like a small project it doesn't matter like how long you worked on something just that you did it um and I think uh somebody told me that once and I always thought that was just helpful to keep in mind um but yeah it's again it's going to be really um you know dependent on your your own background and and where you want to go I don't know if anybody has anything they want to add to that the only thing that I might add is I think all the technical I think all the things that Sarah said are right on I would whether it's in a cover letter or something else I think you want to articulate the why you know the big question was when you're gonna do something super different from what you've done they're gonna ask why and I would say don't let them ask like tell them and you know someone's told me you want your career journey to kind of read like a movie you want all the parts of the story to kind of go together so the next act in the movie looks different from the last give an explanation for why what was it an experience was it a a long pent up desire that you've had and you're finally acting on but just like don't let them just wonder like why the change like just like tell uh you know tell them make it compelling and make it clear right um any more questions from folks who are in the audience um if not I'm going to um you know ask um all of our speakers and panelists to share a resource or a person that they like to read or follow for inspiration like what inspires you all to keep going in the work that you do every day is there a person or a book or a resource uh I'll name one um the friend uh Jen who I'm sure that many people know here Jen Paulka who helped found coach for America um her new book and also just our follower on Twitter or or LinkedIn uh but kind of one of the founders of the civic tech movement in the kind of the modern sense who helps on the U.S. digital service and so on so forth but I think she's really thoughtful about how you take not just the technology but the processes from government and lay and overlay them on top of these big social problems because it requires some reverse engineering so Jen Paulka p a h l k a um and uh she's great to follow and uh I'm an amazing colleague well while others are thinking I'm going to ask another question so you uh have a little chance to think about that is um here's another question a lot of internships fellowships are geared towards people who are college students or recent grads are there resources specifically for career changers I can speak to that a little bit but not um I don't know it's not like a specific resource it's just like a piece of advice um like we you know sometimes we'll see I don't know like if you have the um resources or the time to like take on a small volunteer opportunity in the sense that you know you just like keep your job and then you're like helping out a friend with something um that can be like a kind of you know an internship ish uh it just like gives you something else to talk about that's you know relevant to the um career transition you want to make um and that can be uh you know kind of like a DIY internship um I don't know if anybody else has any other um thoughts on that that kind of thing but that's just something that um I've seen people do with success um if they have the time and resources you know there are actually a lot of fellowships for mid-career folks I mean in fact that's how cheeky and I met uh through um the presidential leadership scholars program um there are great mid-career opportunities and I don't necessarily know that either one of us were going into it at least I wasn't as a career changer but it did change the way I thought about my career so but there are our fellowships that are specifically targeted at people at mid-career so I would look for things like that too as well. Instead of there's a great site run by a good friend Vicki Johnson called profellow.com it's probably the best database I've seen of those types of fellowship opportunities time limited where if we can kind of look up and see things that kind of fit your particular that uh that uh kind of vantage point what you're looking at where you're looking to go what you're looking to do uh the only other thing that I might say uh on top of the final way to kind of work for free for a little bit is um FaceTime like matters a lot so there's some you know there's the South by Southwest of the world the CES of the world but they are the Code for America conference as I would argue the number one specific uh technology almost to to go to but like be where people are because you'll be surprised sometimes even if you're not a technologist you will be surprised say maybe someone does need a strategist someone who's or I know for example um when I was working in government and I would work with the U.S. Digital Service they had a number of procurement experts who were just good at contracting to help agencies figure out how to get the right contractor so don't assume that just because you're not a technologist in the classic sense that you don't have value and at times you can make that value clear by being in someone's face who articulates the need um here's another question um what advice might you have for someone who's early in their career who works for a for-profit but wants to move towards tech for social good over time? I'm gonna take that because I just did that uh two years ago um so uh I was uh working at Apple for a couple years and was looking to pivot into the social impact space because I did not want to work in big tech anymore I feel like as a product manager especially like Chike mentioned earlier kind of making all your decisions based off of profit versus like what's the right thing to build for your users can be very tricky um so resources wise uh wise I would say like definitely utilize things like tech alone and like the old tech as human slack channel they also do amazing events in New York City if you're ever around here and kind of like figuring out ways to join that community and kind of like talk to people who are in the social impact space whether that's nonprofits or like governments or whatever else that may be uh so try to like learn from them ask about their own journey um and then um other things you can do is uh there are a couple of cool like podcasts and newsletters that we can maybe include in the resources that we share afterwards that kind of like talk about specific cause areas like there's tons of things happening in the climate space for example also civic tech is pretty very popular these days so definitely lots of great content there um and yeah and the last thing is kind of like like it's been mentioned already but things like volunteering contributing to open source projects doing some personal projects in a cause area that you really care about and kind of like trying to learn about it and kind of showcase using your skills to kind of build out something that you can then showcase in your resume and your application for these roles so yeah. There's another question that I'm pretty sure a lot of people are faced with right now I'm not sure you all have an answer for this but what's some advice for recent grads who are having a tough time finding a software developer job in any industry and aren't getting callbacks any advice? So this is my advice and so I was always the opposite of this um this might be a time to brush up on another skill which is which is so again if you're someone who majored in computer science or you will always have that but if you also can hey I'm gonna work on you know I spent time as a management consultant we had a ton of engineers and former computer scientists who came on and worked on strategy or working on on non-technological things and what's powerful about that is at some point they will be hiring again don't worry and if you can come there not just with that your base tech technological skills and hopefully you keep fresh through some of the things that we've talked about and now you also say hey I'm also good at strategy I also I learned digital marketing you can go take a digital marketing course from google for 150 bucks over six months and leave with that so it might be a time to figure out how how do I learn a new skill can practice there so that later I can kind of combine those into something really powerful that's that might be an an orthodox strategy but I just want that I would think about yeah I'm uh I would agree to that as well I think the other thing to consider is there are probably a lot of people in a similar situation all looking for a software engineering job and so whatever way that you can find your own sort of leg up or your leverage or what makes you unique will be incredibly powerful and whether that's finding a new skill going deep into into the intersectionality between different spaces so between like tech and climate for example or tech and education wherever you can kind of find your niche is an opportunity to for you to define to define yourself in a really unique way and then and then like we said already also just staying close to the work and trying to get yourself involved wherever you can I mean elections are coming up and they're going to need a lot of tech work right and then on top of that nonprofits are always looking for for tech work as well right so staying involved in whatever way you can even if that means getting really really creative and just looking at the local piece of shop near you and realizing that they need a new website hey if uh if you can make a few extra bucks out of it why not and brush up on your skills show something for your portfolio it's something creative it's something unique and something to talk about so why not hey we have one minute left and um I um will um have one more question that I'm gonna end with just sharing some of the websites do you have any advice for someone coming out of school with no full-time experience I can take this uh I used to teach um and with my students who are all um you know uh I don't know freshman and later um at UT Austin uh I would encourage them especially if they hadn't had like an internship or something to like propose to me a final project where they were like building or making something um you know because that can just give them something to put on a resume even if it's not like necessarily legible like paid experience like you can really make your own um projects um and that can be like really useful I I talk to people coming out of um undergrad all the time who've just like uh you know they're trying to get a software engineering role and they've basically just like built their own little portfolio um with like things that that they've made you know themselves that aren't necessarily a uh like a paid role um so there's like a lot of things you can do like that um that are really legible to people who are hiring and um that would be my advice just like get creative well we are at time I want to um first of all give a couple websites Elsa what is the um website for Tekolo it is Tekolo.org great and build for good is Shivam build the number for good.tech so build for good.tech and you can get on both of those websites and find out how to apply for an internship and get matched with a non-profit or you can get on Tekolo and look for that matching opportunity so thank you all once again thank you thank you great great advice and um appreciate um all the time that you spent on this and um this will be recorded and up and available for folks on our events page um very shortly within 48 hours so thank you all very much and thanks for everyone who tuned in to listen and for your great questions