Hacker Fund

We will produce collaborative invention education competitions (hackathons) throughout Los Angeles County that provide high school students with mentor-guided blended learning environments for project-based exploration of career pathways in the creative economy. This program will allow 1000+ youth to (1) learn creative technology hard skills and teamwork/presentation soft skills and (2) gain exposure to entrepreneurship, career mentorship, and apprenticeship opportunities from professionals across 150+ companies in S.T.E.A.M. industries.

S.T.E.A.M. Collective: LA is a fellowship and professional development ecosystem that builds pathways to a career in the creative economy for Angelenos who fight for social change. Our initial cohort will be accepting Los Angeles applicants who are between the ages of 18 and 24 and who identify as BIPOC or women.

We are building a technology dashboard that will connect S.T.E.A.M. mentors from the industry to LAUSD high school classrooms in order to provide teachers with co-curricular and extra-curricular support in the science, technology, engineering, arts, and math departments. The purpose of our dashboard is to increase class enrollment and class engagement within high school CTE (Career Technical Education) classes and participation in afterschool activities related to S.T.E.A.M.

The S.T.E.A.M. Collective is a collaboration between Hacker Fund and Road to Artdom. Together, we will empower technologists and artists living in Los Angeles County to harness their creativity and build technology and creative arts organizations that educate the disadvantaged, inspire the community, protect the environment. We will provide up to 50 innovators with fiscal sponsorship, capacity-building services, and mentorship so they can prototype, launch, and hire Angelenos.

Hacker Fund is building the first innovation center in Compton for the following purposes: (1) provide thousands of students from Compton Unified School District (CUSD) with career pathways in S.T.E.A.M. education, (2) promote expansion of the CUSD Career Technical Education Program, and (3) create a homebase for entrepreneurship and professional development for Compton stakeholders. This center will feature classes/workshops, access to mentors, prototyping equipment, and coworking space.

Hacker Fund is launching a Civic Innovation Center in order to provide Angelenos with resources for technology education, tools to prototype civic innovations, and a community workspace.