All posts in Technology

On November 14 – 16, Aspiration will be hosting its annual nonprofit technology festival at Preservation Park in Oakland.  The Nonprofit Software Development Summit is not just for techies! The agenda is designed to be relevant and inclusive for all nonprofit technology stakeholders, from new users to seasoned practitioners.  The conference is set up to be very flexible based on the needs and interests of the attendees, and over half the sessions will get proposed and scheduled at the event.

It’s very low-cost ($150 for organizations with budgets below $5,000,000) and has a sliding scale for smaller organizations that would like to participate.

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“Here’s our basic idea: we can crowdsource democracy. Let anyone in the country create a voter guide and promote it through Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest. Then we’ll compile these thoughts into user-friendly formats so anyone can see what their friends and neighbors think about the stuff they’ll be voting on.” - Matt Singer and Scott Duncombe, http://news.theballot.org/

As a relatively new California voter, I’m overwhelmed by the various candidate races and ballot initiatives that I’ll have to vote on come Nov. 6th.  Voting in NY was nothing like this. Voter guides – printed or online guides usually offering basic information or strong opinions on races and/ or propositions produced by a single organization or entity – are one immensely helpful way of navigating the many choices at the polls. (more…)

Black men are heavy users of mobile technology, so why are they not pursuing careers in this field? This is the question that researchers at Pennsylvania State are investigating with a grant they received from the National Science Foundation as reported by The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Lynette Kvasny and Eileen Trauth, both professors of information sciences and technology at Penn State are conducting interviews with Black men on the path toward careers in Information Technology in order to determine which factors encouraged them to make this decision. Dr. Kvasny presents a compelling question: “There’s so much technology in their world, but why do so few Black men make a connection between being a user of technology and making a career out of it?”

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Hot off the press! This past Friday, The San Francisco Business Times released a pretty great article about the Kapors and their perspective on our recent move to Oakland. A subscription is needed to read the entire article, but here’s a taste:

When famed technology titan and philanthropist Mitch Kapor looks at Oakland, he remembers South of Market in San Francisco the way it was in the late 1990s.

“Oakland in particular is the next great South of Market,” Kapor said. “It will be to this decade what South of Market was to the previous one. There’s lots of space, both to work and to live, lots of energy and lots of opportunity. People just sense potential.”

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We’re in the midst of making some major changes to the Kapor Foundation’s approach to social impact work, as I alluded to in a July 17th post. Last week we shared an update with our current grant partners that may be useful for others to know:

“The purpose of this email is to update you on our evolving strategy to meet our mission, which has not changed: ‘We support organizations that provoke social change in communities of color en route to equality.’

For the past five years, the Kapor Foundation has worked to support critical work that affects communities of color both nationally and here in the Bay Area. At the beginning of 2012, we shared our interest in learning more about how info tech can be mobilized in pursuit of positive social impacts. With the ever-growing presence of info tech in our everyday lives, we strongly believe that CBOs must harness technology to more effectively achieve their missions.
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Aspiration and statewide community partners are excited to announce the first-ever California Nonprofit Tech Festival.  The event will bring together nonprofit staff and social justice activists who have interest and passion around technology for social change.  Generously funded by the California Consumer Protection Foundation, this community-focused two-day event will be held in Fresno, California, on September 27th  and 28th from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.  Hope some of you can make it! Register and get more info for this very affordable event here: http://aspirationtech.org/events/catechfest/2012

(Only $50 for individuals from organizations with operating budgets below $5,000,000)

Questions? Contact catechfest (AT) aspirationtech (DOT) org

The Foundation Center is hosting a free program to educate nonprofits who are looking for help in selecting a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Find more details about the event below.

Date: Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Time: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Location:  The Foundation Center-San Francisco
312 Sutter Street, 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108

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Last Thursday, September 6, the Kapor Foundation team had the pleasure of attending the Ideas Are Worthless Conference hosted by Black Founders Startup Ventures.  The purpose of the conference was to “connect, educate, and equip” attendees towards putting their ideas into action. Topics covered included customer development, startup fundraising, and technical talent recruitment.  We attended the conference to inform the Kapor Foundation’s exploration of how to support tech-driven strategies and tools for social change.

Charles Hudson, a Venture Partner at SoftTech VC and the CEO and Co-Founder of Bionic Panda Games, a mobile games company based in San Francisco, CA, began the conference by highlighting lessons he learned en route to becoming an entrepreneur, which I will now share with you.

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I recently stumbled upon an article that mentioned a new mobile application that’s being tested here in the Bay Area.  Inspired by its mission to increase completion rates among community college students in the U.S., GradGears recently released GradGuru for the iPhone and iPod Touch. GradGuru is a free mobile application that helps community college students keep track of campus-specific deadlines; better understand the milestones they need to reach to successfully achieve their goals; learn the behaviors that lead to academic success; tap existing student support and financial aid services and resources; and share lessons with each other.

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