Summary:

• Empowr brought in its first in-person cohort for the 2022-2023 year. 

• Our students flew across the country to Utah and California to tour tech offices

• Two students obtained paid internships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• One student, Thomas, received early admission to MIT's class of 2028

• Organizations donated over $300,000 to support Empowr students

• We launched Coppin, an open-source tool that helps any educational institution launch a computer science course

The new norm has been established. The political landscape of America is filled with discourse, blatant corruption, pushes for a civil war, and a lack of humanity. Every time we look at our phones, it is easy to wonder where kindness has gone. We all are struggling, whether mentally or financially. In times like these, the community can flourish rather than be lost. We can spread meaningful love by focusing on those around us, strangers and kin. As I look back on this year with Empowr, there were so many moments of impact.

We began the 2022-2023 Empowr year with around 30 students in our program. It has been our first year teaching directly in school at South Atlanta High School (SAHS). South Atlanta is a large and predominately black school located in South Atlanta. The school faces many issues, such as drugs, gangs, guns, and homelessness. We knew coming into this school would present a challenge. Thankfully, we felt confident due to the fantastic staff at SAHS, who pour their souls into providing a safe and fruitful learning environment for their children. Teaching in such a new environment required many changes:

1. We now bring every student a healthy meal in class. By doing so, we can combat the food insecurity that many of the children face.

2. We gamified the curriculum. Once we gamified the curriculum, we found students' engagement in and outside the classroom skyrocketed.

3. We had to develop a new level of empathy and relationship with our kids.

Some of our children have experienced tragedy that many would struggle to comprehend. Empowr had to ensure that our classroom environments understood each child as an individual while maintaining our rigorous pace.

Empowr also launched Coppin, our open-source educational service that allows any educational institution to create a computer science program online. Coppin enables institutions to develop programming assignments that are automatically graded, and students can complete them on any internet-connected device. Coppin removes the need for expensive hardware to be given to students and eliminates the digital divide. Coppin is designed to work closely with the Open Edx learning platform. We have the unforgettable experience of being invited as a Keynote presenter to the OpenEdx conference at MIT in March. We could speak about Coppin and how it helps democratize education for all.

The most fun thing Empowr did in 2023 was to take our first cross-country tour. We began in Atlanta by visiting PagerDuty's office. This was the students' first experience visiting a tech office. We got to enjoy lunch and learn about daily life as a software engineer. Empowr students flew out to visit our donors and other tech offices. We started our trip by visiting Pluralsight in Utah. The students were amazed at the large and high-tech office. Pluralsight was even thoughtful enough to let our students converse with the CEO! We then got to go to Olympic Park, and everyone conquered their fears with extreme tubing, obstacle courses, and ziplining.

After Utah, we continued our tour in San Francisco. The heart of the tech world provided a brand new perspective for each child. We had a fantastic talk with Christiaan of True Ventures as he explained to the students the secrets to becoming a successful entrepreneur. We then continued our journey by visiting Cash App, where the students got a highly technical dive into the real-life solutions that engineers must create. Last, we got to tour Uber. The students couldn't believe the luxury that San Francisco tech offices can afford, and they got to learn how the teams behind large companies like Uber operate.

The feeling was unanimous among all the children: this was their best trip ever. It was mine as well.

Some students enjoyed the trip with us, and others began a new journey. Dawit and Thomas spent their summer interning at MIT through the Empowr program. They got to work closely with MIT professors on MIT's open-source solutions. They gained valuable insight into how working as an engineer is. As if that wasn't enough, our student, Thomas, was also accepted into MIT as part of the Class of 2028.

As an organization, Empowr hired its first teacher, Jasmine Coleman. Jasmine is passionate about education and its impact on black boys. We are proud to have her as our official Curriculum Creator and teacher. Not to mention, she created and launched our Unity Gaming Program! Our students now learn how to build mobile games using the Unity platform.

We gained a new edition on our Board as well. Simran Brar, the VP of Engineering at Okta, joined Empowr as the Directory of Technology. She had an immediate impact as she helped Empowr gain access to systems that can increase security and efficiency within the organization.

This year was made possible by our many donors. I will keep it short as I am almost at the point of this turning from a year in review to a short novel.

• The Hopper-Dean Foundation continued support and pledged $100,000 for the next three years.

• Sony joined our list of donors with a $50,000 cash grant and a $50,000 in-kind grant. In addition, they sent out a world-famous filmography to create a mini-doc on Empower. Expect its release soon.

• Salesforce awarded Empowr a generous $100,000 grant and access to the Salesforce software.

• Rebecca and Cal Henderson Foundation continued their support and pledged $25,000 for the next three years.

• Pluralsight continued their support with in-kind software and an additional $25,000.

We had numerous other donations from Okta, GM, Akamai, Fast Forward, Pager Duty, and more. Not to mention all the individuals, such as yourself. These individuals and organizations join our other donors such as True Ventures, Blackrock and GitHub who have helped Empowr make a difference in our communities.

As we look to the next year, we ask that you continue helping us change lives. In 2024, we aim to secure more internships for our students. We will work to ensure every third- and fourth-year student obtains a paid internship. The average household salary for our programming is only $25,000 a year. The typical Empowr internship pays over $20/hour, effectively tripling a family's income.

Internally, Empowr will focus on scaling up the business to be more efficient without sacrificing quality. Doing so will allow us to move our in-person classes into new markets while continuing to expand our national virtual program.

It currently costs $3,000 to bring a student into our program. This includes the laptop every student receives to work from, daily healthy meals, internet access, and more.

Please consider donating to sponsor a child to enter the Empowr program. We don't just diversify tech. We end poverty cycles, decrease disparity, and, most importantly, change lives.

Thank you,

Adrian Le'Roy Devezin

Executive Director