Katherine Olives
Our exciting partnership with Communitas America continues to train CCNY students for careers in social impact. Earlier this summer, we hosted seventeen CCNY students for a two-day, immersive, social impact training seminar. In addition, ten students were placed in paid summer internships with social enterprises throughout the NYC area.
At the immersive training seminar, students discussed why pursuing a profession in social impact is so vital, especially today. Those in attendance learned about what it means to be a social entrepreneur, and how they can succeed in social impact-related careers. On the first day, the participants studied cases involving Uncharted Play and Toms, and heard from Amer Jandali, the US Head of Operations at Dopper. The second day began with an exercise out of Echoing Greens Work on Purpose, which challenges participants to define their passion by examining tangible skills along with personal virtues. That day, they heard from Ben Chase, Managing Director of IDEO.orgs Equity Practice, and discussed a case study on differing ridesharing services Uber and Careem.
Ten students took what they learned from the seminar into their internships, and theyre now creating impact in their own ways at various New York social enterprises. Learn more about the organizations below, and how CCNY students are gaining career experience in interesting fields.
The mission at Be Social Change is to help people find + do purposeful work, connect with like-minded people, and lead socially-conscious lifestyles. Be Social Change does this through weekly workshops, monthly events, and resources such as a weekly events guide and jobs board that help people plugin or transition into the social impact space. Oluwafunmilayo Agoro, a freshmen studying biomedical engineering is an intern at Be Social Change helping with various projects.
Pale Blue Dot Media is a production company based in New York City. They focus on stories at the intersection of human rights and environmental issues, but will tackle any subject with a compelling narrative and end-goal of contributing to the greater good. Current projects include: BOOTSTRAPS – a doc series about universal basic income, STORY OF PLASTIC – a feature doc about the global cycle of plastic production, consumption, and disposal, and THE RELUCTANT RADICAL – a feature doc about the climate crisis and the use of non-violent civil disobedience.
Kartikeya Sharma, a sophomore studying computer science, works as a data scientist for Bootstraps Film.
BlocPower is a clean energy startup that provides engineering, financing, and project implementation services for green building retrofits that save money, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve health and create local employment opportunities in low-to-moderate income communities. Asia Johnson, a Masters student studying Communications, is a marketing intern at BlocPower.
Civic Hall is a one-of-a-kind innovation center for civic tech innovators. Located in NYC, it provides a space to share knowledge, build tools and solve problems together. Erika Santos, a senior studying public policy and international relations, is a special programs intern at Civic Hall this summer.
Echoing Green identifies tomorrows transformational leaders today. Through its Fellowships and other innovative leadership initiatives, Echoing Green spots emerging leaders and invests deeply in their success to accelerate their impact.
Echoing Green has been ahead of the curve for more than 30 years, supporting visionaries around the world who are transforming economies, and pursuing racial and gender equity, environmental sustainability, and more. Echoing Greens unparalleled community of talent consists of more than 700 innovators who have launched Teach For America, City Year, One Acre Fund, SKS Microfinance, Public Allies, and more. The organization provides seed-funding and leadership development to a new class of Fellows every year and welcomes them into its lifelong community of leaders.
Echoing Green accelerates talent that will change the world for the better. Jocelyn Gao works as a search and selection intern at Echoing Green, helping them to identify this talent. Shes a public administration grad student.
SecondMuse builds purpose-driven networks using innovation to tackle the complex challenges of our time – in communities, cities and countries around the world. They help organizations solve systems-level grand challenges, governments more effectively utilize their resources and connect with citizens, and corporations leverage their strengths and break silos to solve complex problems. They have implemented projects across six continents for clients such as IKEA, Intel, NASA, Nike, USAID, New York City Economic Development Corporation, The World Bank, the US Department of State, The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the City of Melbourne.
Mariama Wilson, a senior studying electrical engineering, is a Cities Intern at SecondMuse this summer.
TFA is a diverse network of leaders who confront educational inequity through teaching and work with unwavering commitment from every sector of society to create a nation free from this injustice. As a collective force€”educators, advocates, entrepreneurs, policymakers, community members€”Teach for America fights for the aspirations of students and families. Their aim is to realize the day when every child has an equal opportunity to learn, grow, influence, and lead.
Michael Borrello, a junior chemical engineering major, is a podcast and video intern at Teach for America.
ThinkEco is a NYC-based, Internet-of- Things (IoT) technology company, providing easy-to-use energy efficiency solutions for utilities, enterprises, and homes. They are the innovators behind Con Edison’s SmartAC program (www.conedsmartac.com), which is one of the country’s largest demand response programs focused on residential customers. Their novel approach to energy management has been featured in local and national media, including the New York Times, CBS News, the Today Show, the Wall Street Journal, and has garnered numerous awards for its pioneering work in energy efficiency, including Alliance to Save Energy’s Star of energy Efficiency.
Emmanuil Simkhayev, a senior studying computer science, is a software developer at ThinkEco for the summer.
Veripad is a social impact tech company looking to improve access to high quality medications in underserved communities by providing a cost-effective and easy-to-use platform to chemically authenticate medicines. Tala Azar, a senior biomedical engineering major, works on a variety of projects at Veripad including B2B sales, marketing, and social network mapping.
Yada is a scalable workforce of research assistants, augmented by software and AI. Accessible via chat anytime, we process all of the manual data tasks that burden sales and marketing teams today (e.g. online research, lead generation, data cleaning, etc.). Hugo Meza, a computer engineering major, is a software engineering intern for the summer.
To learn more about these incredible organizations, follow their title links. Communitas America and the Zahn Innovation Center are proud to be able to place changemakers within the vast realm of social innovation.