Meet 4.0’s 2022 Tiny Fellows
We’ve selected 141 leaders with early-stage ideas reimagining education to join the 2022 Tiny Fellowship!
Today, we are overjoyed to introduce you to the newest cohort of 4.0’s Tiny Fellowship! We cannot be more proud of the 104 innovative teams we’ve selected who are reimagining education with their communities.
The Tiny Fellowship is a four month program that takes fellows from an idea with early traction to a proof point that is ready to grow. Fellows learn how to plan, run, and evaluate a recurring pilot. Fellows recieve coaching from experts, a $7,000 grant, up to $3,000 after graduation, and a community of peers, all pushing themselves to run disciplined tests of their ideas with their communities. By the end of the Tiny Fellowship, fellows will have evidence toward if people want their idea and if it works.
If you have an idea for how to reimagine education, 4.0 is here to help you start. Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest updates on 4.0 programming.
For now, join us in welcoming the 2022 Tiny Fellows to the 4.0 community!
Aaron Pyne “the Elven Wizard” | Longmont, CO
About Aaron Pyne “the Elven Wizard”: Aaron Pyne is a meditation teacher, artist, designer, and “Elven Wizard” currently located in Colorado. For over 20 years Aaron has dedicated his life to empowering others through meditation techniques, holistic energy based techniques, mythology, and his digital art. In 2020 he began creating his new epic adventure platform called Inner Realms Journey, which takes users on a fantasy themed adventure within their imagination using guided audio experiences. Within the journey, users create their unique heroic Avatar persona to empower them in their day to day life. Aaron is excited to collaborate and create with the fellowship.
About Inner Realms Journey: Inner Realms Journey (IRJ) is a web & mobile app platform delivering meditation and arts-based education packaged within a heroic adventure game framework. IRJ’s platform is equipped with a library of audio meditation journeys & training, support practitioners, an online community, live webinar adventures, and real-world quests. We offer a solution for educators, wellness group facilitators, parents, and homeschool instructors looking to add an engaging tutoring-based meditation experience to their current curriculum offerings. . Group facilitation does not require an in-person presence and can be done virtually with as little or as many participants as desired.
Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Aaron Rodriguez | Tallahassee, FL
About Aaron Rodriguez: Aaron Rodriguez, co-founder of Vizling, an award-winning educational accessibility and technologies expert with nearly 7 years of experience teaching at the college level, is in charge of the design and development of the Vizling App and the Vizling Accessible Design Software. Mr. Rodriguez leads Vizling efforts into education research and is tasked with coordinating, evaluating, implementing testing, updating, and improving the education technology.
About Vizling App: Vizling is an accessibility app designed to make multimodal media, like comics, maps, and art, accessible for blind and low vision readers in an equitable way using an intuitive user interface which combines haptics with scaffolded exploratory reading modes.
Adam Knox-Warshaw, Arron Zheng and Bryon Dawayne Pierson Jr.| St. Louis, MO
About Adam Knox-Warshaw: Adam Knox-Warshaw recently graduated undergrad from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in computer engineering and will be pursuing a master’s in computer science this upcoming fall. His current goal at EDUrain is to develop a tech platform that can support the business model to get series A funding within the next two years. Through EDUrain, he also strives to develop into a multifaceted professional who not only has technical skills, but also interpersonal skills and industry knowledge to confidently navigate any professional setting.
About Arron Zheng: Arron Zheng recently graduated from Washington University with a degree in electrical engineering. He is a cofounder of Lansing Sales & Marketing, a full service agency specializing in advertising for the restaurant industry. His primary strength is in product/service building as he has designed the majority of Lansing SM’s product line. He joined EDUrain in 2020 as a developer and later as a cofounder after meeting Bryon at a career fair. In the past 2 years, EDUrain has undergone significant change, and I look forward to working with 4.0 schools to further refine our model.
About Bryon Dawayne Pierson Jr.: Bryon Dawayne Pierson Jr. is an social entrepreneur based in St. louis, MO. He was a foster care student that spent his student undergraduate experience studying enrollment and retention best practices. His senior assignment looked at 330 colleges across America and what they are doing to retain students. He also was a program evaluator on the national level for a college access organization called Boys Hope Girls Hope, Lastly he served as the head of college outreach for a US Senate Campaign in Missouri. Bryon is passionate about growing honest and collaborative organizations.
About EDUrain: EDUrain is a housing engine that helps students find affordable off-campus housing. But we also offer services that prepare them for the leasing process. Our credit building program allows them to build credit while living on or off campus. We also offer renter’s insurance as well as tenant background checks through our partners. As for our landlords, we provide them high-quality tenants that are ready to rent, and EDUrain is cheaper then what is on the market for tenant sourcing services compared to listing agents, zillow, and apartments.com
Aireane Montgomery & Anthony Downer II | Atlanta, GA
About Aireane Montgomery: Aireane Montgomery is an educator in Lawrenceville, Ga. She has worked 5 years in Gwinnett County Public Schools. She is the President and CEO of Georgia Educators for Equity and Justice Inc., a nonprofit organization devoted to the liberation and belonging of Black educators and students throughout the State of Georgia.
About Anthony Downer II: Anthony Downer II is an abolitionist educator, educational consultant, curriculum developer, and researcher of critical race studies who currently teaches Africana studies and civics at Frederick Douglass High School in Atlanta and is the Vice President of Georgia Educators for Equity and Justice.
About Georgia Educators for Equity and Justice Inc. presents: Raise Black Voices Town halls: Georgia Educators for Equity and Justice Inc. will host town halls around the State of Georgia in order to give space for Black educational stakeholders to have an opportunity to address the state of Black education. This will allow for accurate and authentic advocacy on key issues surrounding the Black community during the 2023 Georgia Legislative Session.
Instagram | Anthony’s LinkedIn
Aiyeshia Hudson-Wong | Chicago, IL
About Aiyeshia Hudson-Wong: Aiyeshia Hudson-Wong has dedicated the past 15 years to serving thousands of families and students as an educator and organizer. During her community organizing years, she mobilized families around affordable housing campaigns. Inspired by youth activists, she transitioned to teaching and spent 11 years in the classroom prioritizing identity affirmation, intersectionality, and Black joy. As a school leader, she founded a micro-school serving families living on Chicago’s Southside. Currently, she is the founder and executive director of Liberation Journeys — a non-profit organization that partners with students and educators to co-design liberatory learning experiences and dismantle anti-Black racism in schools.
About Liberation Journeys: Liberation Journeys partners with schools and young people to co-design liberatory learning experiences, affirm student identity, and dismantle anti-Black racism in schools. Our primary focus is supporting middle and high schools that are committed to the continual process of deconstructing policies and systems that perpetuate racism in their learning environments. Specifically, Liberation Journeys 1) facilitates Liberation Leaders, a two-year student leadership development institute aimed at developing our next generation of racial justice leaders 2) designs racial justice curriculum that centers social emotional development, identity affirmation, and real-world problem solving 3) trains educators to co-design liberatory learning spaces with students.
Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Alexa Simeone | Pompano Beach, FL
About Alexa Simeone: Alexa Simeone is the founder of an ocean-focused creative lab for early-age kids. She’s dedicated to reframing the language we use and the approach we take in catalyzing pro-ecological behavior. She is a proven brand connector, educator, and leader with a strong background in grant writing, visual marketing, and branding. She has lived in Sao Paulo, Rome, and New York City enjoying micro-adventures in her life and teaching experiences. Alexa helps kids turn marine debris into art and designed an award-winning arts-based environmental education curriculum. Today, she runs an outdoor art lab for families based in Pompano, Beach Florida.
About Lele Art Lab: Ever heard of Trash Talk? We take it and make art. We turn beaches into classrooms and marine debris into art. Lele Art Lab is an ocean-focused creative lab, running an art-based environmental education program for kids. We host pop-up workshops using our award-winning, traveling art cart, Sea.Me and create a space for students to train as ARTivists and engage in citizen science. Our creative curriculum facilitates playful and art-filled experiences. In our quest for a greener planet, our mission is to push for a greater message of inclusion and weave important cultural storytelling and art into green science.
Alexis Barnes & Anthony “Ant” Bowden | Atlanta, GA
About Alexis Barnes: Alexis Barnes is passionate about young women becoming fierce advocates of their destinies. As a Spelman College graduate, she recognized a stark contrast between her empowering college experience and the inequality she witnessed in education firsthand. Understanding education as a social justice issue, she chose to uphold her college’s motto, “A choice to change the world,” by becoming an education servicewoman and joining Teach for America in Las Vegas Valley as a Math teacher. She’s served in various capacities in her career in education, working as a teacher, mentor, founder of new programs, and leader.
About Anthony “Ant” Bowden: Anthony Bowden, school founder of Liberty Leadership Academy for Young Men is committed to reimagining the schooling experience.The mission of Liberty Leadership Academy is to develop the next generation of male and female entrepreneurs through literacy, learning, and life skills. The goal of LLA is to provide a nurturing space for Black and Brown Students, that meets their academic and socio-emotional needs and prepares them for life. Our approach fuels students with the practice of 21st-century skills that don’t just make them contributors to society through the workforce but equips them with the skills to build their own.
About Liberty Leadership Academy For Young Women & Men: The mission of Liberty Leadership Academy is to develop the next generation of male and female entrepreneurs through literacy, learning, and life skills. Liberty Leadership Academy believes that our young people have excellent ideas and assist them in finding their individual and collective voice in response to those limitations. Our vision for Liberty Leadership Academy is to promote entrepreneurship in marginalized communities, expanding career opportunities for Atlanta residents, creating solutions to social issues, and shattering the glass ceiling for young women and young men in society.
Alicia Garcia | Deerfield Beach, FL
About Alicia Garcia: Alicia Garcia is a chef and gardener. She collaborates with community partners for her Home Economics and Food Literacy programming, as well as hosts community suppers. She holds degrees in Culinary Arts and Fashion Design… that means her gatherings are easy on the eyes. You’ll step into her learning spaces excited with anticipation. Alicia is also certified for Plant Based Nutrition and Nature-Based Education.
Her hope is that through Project Flourish, children… and in turn families are inspired to connect, nourish their bodies / minds, and establish successful rhythms for life and learning. All the best conditions to thrive.
About Project Flourish Community: Project Flourish offers classes, community gatherings, and a thoughtfully curated collection of provisions with an emphasis on nature, wellness, & sustainability. We celebrate modern culturally diverse families with our interdisciplinary programming, provide opportunities for learning via play, and encourage environmental stewardship. Think… Home Economics Gone Green!
Angela L. Johnson, Paola Pallares, & Diana Barrios | Houston, TX
About Angela L. Johnson: Angela L. Johnson is Executive Director/Co-Founder of INNERVERSE INC. A TX certified educator with over 17 years’ experience, her mission is to create meaningful, experiential-based programs that allow children to thrive “where they are”. After launching “Actin’ Out”, a performing arts outreach camp, “Rules to Fly By”, an At-Risk Aviation mentorship cohort, and “Girl, I’m a Boss” a mentoring workshop that empowers young ladies, Ms. Johnson, opened Kids’ Academy of Cultural Intelligence in the fall of 2020 to serve students at greater risk, post COVID-19. She is a “boy mom” of two, lovingly known as her “Tupac” and “Malcolm X”.
About Paola Pallares: Paola is the Director of Innovation and Curriculum/Co-Founder of INNERVERSE INC. and the Co-Founder of “The Inner School” in Columbia, South America. She has ten years experience in Education and Philosophy and is an Education Specialist in Ethics and Theory of Knowledge. As a Curriculum Specialist she designs, implements and evaluates content and curricula in Humanities. Mrs. Pallares’ participation in research projects for Education and service as Student Advisor has proven to her that the human being, as a whole, is at the heart and should be first addressed by all educational efforts.
About Diana Barrios: Diana is the President, Co-Founder of INNERVERSE INC. in Houston, TX and Co-Founder of “The Inner School” in Columbia, South America. Mrs. Barrios boasts 10 years of experience in education, including College and Career advising in Houston ISD, and successfully coordinating special projects such as Model United Nations (MUN), a series of programs run throughout the world with goals of promoting peace and furthering the understanding of world issues. Her experience living in different countries with diverse cultures, enlightened her to the needs of humanity and how the educational system, a tool that serves human beings, must reconsider its objectives.
About INNERVERSE, Guiding middle school students to discover and harness their inner virtues into a consciously led career path.: Innerverse is a Houston-based youth, education non-profit that focuses on
restoring a teen’s sense of personal value in a time when internal struggles and external influences can make thriving in middle school nearly impossible. Our specialized curriculum is delivered through 3 student workshops where we empower them to embrace who they are, own their educational experience, and chart a career pathway that reflects the future they envision for themselves. We equip students with independent agency by combining
principles of self-awareness, transcendence, and self-mastery with practical
post-secondary career planning knowledge standards. The INNERVERSE
experience brings purpose back to learning.
Angela L. Lang | Montgomery, AL
About Angela L. Lang: Angela Lang is an educator based in Montgomery County, AL. She has more than 20 years of education experience, having served in multiple leadership roles from Principal, Facilitator, Director, and State Specialists. She is dedicated to education equity and advocating for student-centered learning environments. In 2015, she led the start-up of a new public school and system centered around project-based learning. In 2020, she co-founded I Dream Big Charter School as a learning environment that inspires students to identify their passions through entrepreneurship, tech innovations, and apprenticeship opportunities while aligning their interests to meaningful and passionate careers.
About I Dream Big Academy: I Dream Big Academy (IDB) is a nonprofit public Charter School serving grades 6–12 with a student-centered focus that prepares students for life beyond high school. Building relationships with each student through mentoring and advisory allows IDB to develop personal learning plans that account for each student’s academic, social-emotional and physical needs to ensure every student maximizes their fullest potential. IDB relies on flexible and innovative learning environments to help students identify their interests and discover passions through authentic, hands-on learning experiences involving entrepreneurship, tech innovations, and apprenticeship opportunities. Our students prepare for purposeful careers driven by interests and passion.
Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Angelique Reynolds-King | Fredericksburg, VA
About Angelique Reynolds-King: Angelique Reynolds-King is a public school educator passionate about helping students break generational cycles through social mobility, financial literacy and college access. A Charlotte, NC native, Angelique now resides in Fredericksburg, VA where she arms foster youth and McKinney Vento students with the skills, support and resources needed to propel in life post high school graduation. She is excited to join the 4.0 community!
About The Armor & Propel Project: The Armor & Propel Project is a free educational outreach program that arms foster youth and McKinney Vento students with the skills and resources needed to propel in life post-high school graduation.
Anjali Rodrigues | Brooklyn, NY
About Anjali Rodrigues: Anjali Rodrigues (she/her) is an educator and leadership trainer who has been working in public schools and community organizing spaces for over a decade. She leads workshops on public narrative and community organizing for organizations all over the country, including: United We Dream, March For Our Lives, the Sunrise Movement, Color of Change, and more. She is the founder of the WARMTH Fellowship, a program where BIPOC femme leaders and organizers ages 15–29 deepen their leadership practices in community, while practicing collective care. Anjali also teaches a leadership and community organizing course for twelfth graders in Brownsville, NY.
About The WARMTH Fellowship: The WARMTH fellowship is a nine month program, where young femme-identifying POC organizers and emerging leaders ages 15–29 come together to experience WARMTH (Women Affirming, Resisting, Mirroring, Truth-Telling, Honoring).
Participants deepen and enrich their leadership and organizing skills, while engaging in collective care and peer coaching. Our goal is to support capacity-building in these young leaders, particularly when it comes to sustaining themselves, each other, and our communities in movement work.
Anne-Marcelle Kouame and Michael Huynh | Washington D.C. Area
About Anne-Marcelle Kouame and Michael Huynh: Anne-Marcelle Kouame is a Certified Coach in YouMap®️, a proven 4-pillar framework of self-awareness and career fit. Michael Huynh is a multidisciplinary educator at PWCPS, a school-managed system known for its unique system of integrated mentorship.
They are children of immigrants.
They are advocates of the LGBTQIA+ communities.
And they are proud members of the Black and Asian diaspora, the dispersion of any people from their original homeland.
Together, they created BAEsphere to serve young Black and Asian students, professionals, and allies. They look forward to building partnerships and resources for their community.
About BAEsphere: We translate Black and Asian Entertainment (BAE) hobbies — anime, k-drama, and hip-hop — into professional narratives and passion projects that get students and early-career BAEfans noticed and hired!
Instagram| Anne-Marcelle’s LinkedIn | Michael’s LinkedIn
Ashley Zanders | Baton Rouge, LA
About Ashley Zanders: Ashley Zanders is the founder of Children Pay- a marketplace that allows parents to manage payments and discover extracurricular activities for their children, all in one place. A homeschooling mom of three and former customer relationship manager, Zanders has over a decade of experience navigating the pain points of discovering the right activities for the right child at the right time, along with the inefficient payment experience supporting it all. Her success in extracurricular management has created opportunities for her to present at national conferences, participate in startup accelerators, all the while raising award-winning children in their respective fields of piano, swim, and martial arts.
About ChildrenPay: ChildrenPay is a parent management platform that allows parents to discover and manage extracurricular activities and services, including payment, all in one place. It was created to reduce time spent managing multiple payment options like Venmo, checks, PayPal, and help with failed google searches for service providers. ChildrenPay will allow parents more control and transparency over their budget by consolidating payments using one form, while also giving parents access to a marketplace of service providers such as tutors, sports teams, dance instructors etc. in our marketplace.
Bari Applebaum | Los Angeles, CA
About Bari Applebaum: Bari Applebaum is a former teacher and advocate for social and environmental justice. While teaching Chemistry in Los Angeles, she noticed that many of her students did not have access to healthy food or safe green spaces. To combat this, she worked with students to renovate their abandoned school garden and to form Chicas Verdes. Now, Chicas Verdes is an after-school program that builds socially-minded leaders by fostering young peoples’ to nature.
About Chicas Verdes: Chicas Verdes is an after-school program that builds socially-minded leaders by fostering young peoples’ connection to nature. Programming is based out of school gardens where students work as a group to learn more about themselves, nature, and society. Chicas Verdes students analyze their community’s infrastructure and develop and sustain community-based initiatives that support personal and environmental health.
Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Bejanae Kareem, EdS | Atlanta, GA
About Bejanae Kareem, EdS: Bejanae Kareem, The STEM Education and Grant Guru, has over 20 years of experience in PK-12 and postsecondary education, grants, equity building, and STEAM Education. Ms. Kareem is passionate about combining adulting learning principles with grant strategy to build PK-12 administrators and educators capacity to increase student access to innovative education through her organization BK International Education Consultancy.
Ms. Kareem holds an Education Specialist degree in Educational Leadership, Master’s in Early Childhood and Elementary Education, Bachelor’s in Biology; teaching certifications in Reading and English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), as well as a graduate certificate in Project Management.
About Amplify Education Equity to Accelerate Learning: Amplify Education Equity to Accelerate Learning provides hands-on coaching, courses, and community that builds PK-12 administrator and educator capacity to fully stock classrooms and create innovative learning spaces. Amplify Education Equity to Accelerate Learning’s teacher-tested tools are the ultimate cheat sheet to secure grants that eliminate teacher out of pocket spending resulting in increased teacher effectiveness and positive educational outcomes for students.
Candis Wilson & Miah Sims| Houston, TX
About Candis Wilson: Candis Wilson holds a BA in Social Work and a Masters in Secondary Education. She’s SPED certified and has an array of diversified educational expertise including being a certified Reading Specialist for Dyslexic students. She’ll soon take the diagnostician certification exam.
About Miah: Miah Sims holds a BA in Psychology, and a Masters in Counseling Psychology. She’s worked as a Marriage & Family Therapy intern, counseling youth and older adults to heal from depression, anxiety, academic and relationship problems. With a decade of classroom teaching experience and working in mental health, Miah knows first-hand the urgency in providing each child a quality education.
About Primary Focus Learning Center Online (pflconline.com): Born out of the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, PFLCOnline.com was created to give families and teachers the opportunity and privilege of continuing their studies with certified educators, all from the comfort of their own homes. The urgency in providing all children with quality education, despite the challenges our nation faces currently, is what makes PFLCOnline.com a necessity. Teachers, students, and families are literally dying all because they are choosing to continue education in the classroom despite the health risks. That is an unfair and hazardous choice to be made. As a result, PFLCOnline.com is the solution.
Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Catisha Toney | Gary, IN
About Catisha Toney: Catisha Toney is the Founder and Executive Director of Coates, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to educational equity and providing college and career strategies to all. She has over 15 years of educational experience and has held positions in higher education, propriety education, as well as K-12 schools. She knows firsthand the many layers of education. She was a first-generation college student and knows firsthand the support students need for college and career success. Catisha is an advocate for equity in education and an inclusive educator who is passionate about creating opportunities for under-served students and young adults.
About The Exploration Project: The Exploration project provides a strategic curriculum that focuses on immersive college and career exploration in three career pathways: Technology, Healthcare, and Trades. This is a three-pathway program meant to dissect all three pathways and help students understand the magnitude of career opportunities in these fields. Participants will explore college and career opportunities and engage in industry-specific career shadow days, guest speaker series, and career-connected learning experiences. This will increase skill levels and provide time for individualized coaching. The program will provide students with exposure to in-demand career fields and progressive pathways before students graduate high school.
Twitter | Instagram| Facebook | LinkedIn
Chanel Moton | Chicago, IL
About Chanel Moton: Chanel Moton is an 8th year mathematics teacher born and raised on the south side of Chicago. As a product of the Chicago Public School district, Chanel is honored to teach in the district which molded her to be the powerhouse educator she is today. As a Bradley University graduate, and a Teach for America alum, Chanel is dedicated to shaping the minds of our young scholars. She seeks strengthen her math enrichment program that combats summer learning loss with emphasis on SEL, Social-Emotional Learning.
About Isolated Figures: Isolated Figures is an enrichment program geared toward the “gamification” of math education. It is designed to combat the summer learning loss experienced by underrepresented students in urban areas throughout the city of Chicago and surrounding areas. Through hands-on, FUN learning, students will find a new found love and passion for mathematics.
Chester Asher | St. Louis, MO
About Chester Asher: Asher has dedicated his life to social justice. He has been an educator for eighteen years, taught in NYC for 8 years, and is an instructional expert. He has taught every grade from Kindergarten to twelfth. He has visited over one hundred schools including schools in South Africa, Senegal, Jamaica, Ghan, England, New Zealand, Sweden, New York City, and Philadelphia. He is the father of five and steps into every school and every classroom with the idea that the school, class, instruction, and adult interactions should live up to the expectations and standards he requires for his own children.
About Ali Academy: Ali Academy is a proposed, free, K through 12, social justice public school that aims to serve children and families in Saint Louis City, MO. We will start with sixth grade and grow each year. We exist to achieve greater social justice in education by providing a world class rigorous education and invite you to help us build a school that speaks to our highest aspirations. Our mission is to empower scholars to achieve academic, professional, communal and personal greatness by focusing on relevance, rigor, and righteousness. Our vision is to build successful educational, economic, social, and political institutions that will fight for and achieve social justice for all. We seek to build a network and improve schools across the nation and world.
Twitter | Instagram| Facebook | LinkedIn
Chiffon Rushford, Jonathan Dec, Ashley Pichardo, Sharleen Morris | Newark, NJ
About Chiffon Rushford, Jonathan Dec, Ashley Pichardo, Sharleen Morris: IKEMBA Educational Partners, LLC is a team of teachers and school leaders who have devoted their lives to raising student achievement. We champion equity of opportunity for all students, in and out of the classroom, as well as equity of teacher recruitment and leader development. The Ikemba EdX Platform, the logical extension of our work thus far in education, offers BIPOC educators a social commerce platform to galvanize pockets of reform into an educational revolution. Our mission is to provide grassroots solutions to the nation’s biggest problems in both education and social justice.
About Ikemba EdX Platform: “Culturally responsive education” is a buzzword that continues to spark controversy among educators and communities, in large part because it means different things to different people. Educators from K–12 to higher ed are currently working in silos with their definitions and instructional approaches without the support they need to turn theory into action for their students. If we establish a digital marketplace where educators can buy and sell high-quality resources while building a community around a shared definition of culturally-sustaining pedagogy, then we equip our partners to engage students as empowered advocates for themselves and others.
Chrissie Vroome Knous and Bill Knous | Aurora, CO
About Chrissie Vroome Knous: Originally from Philadelphia, Chrissie Vroome Knous is an educator, writer, and mother with a passion for breathing deeply. She has a B.A. in English and an M.S. in Secondary Education from the University of Pennsylvania, and has completed the Mindful Teacher Program through Mindful Schools. Chrissie has taught English as a first, second, and even third language in the U.S.A, Spain, and Colombia, and most recently served as a Student Support Specialist at the International School of Denver. She loves her family, dog, traveling, singing Disney songs to her sons, and writing to make a difference.
About Bill Knous: Bill Knous is a Denver native who grew up attending Denver Public Schools. He currently serves as the School Director of DSST: College View High School. He has a B.A. in History from the University of Wyoming, a certification in Non-Profit Management through Temple University, and an M.A. in Secondary Education from Villanova University. He recently completed the National Principals Fellowship program through the RELAY Graduate School of Education. He loves the Nuggets, Broncos, Avalanche, and Rockies, and spends his days reading, listening and thinking. He loves making his sons giggle.
About Gran Via Education: Gran Via brings mindfulness to middle schoolers through hands-on, screen-free experiential learning. By fostering attention, empathy, and connection, youth will develop the social and emotional skills needed to succeed in school and beyond.
Instagram | Facebook| Chrissie’s LinkedIn |
Cielo Villa | New York, NY
About Cielo Villa: Cielo Villa is a social entrepreneur at heart. She is currently the founder and CEO of Road to Uni, a nonprofit organization that works to ensure that every high school student has access to the information, resources, and individualized support they need to apply to the right colleges, thereby maximizing the amount of financial aid they receive. Cielo believes that with the right information, step-by-step instructions, and access to knowledgeable college access specialists to answer questions and offer advice, any student can self-navigate their pathway to plenty of college options that will leave them with little to no debt.
About Road to Uni: Road to Uni is an edtech nonprofit startup with the mission of ensuring that first-gen, low-income students across the United States can successfully navigate the convoluted world of college admissions with the help of the highest quality college-going information and individualized guidance at no cost.
Road to Uni is creating an online platform that will offer students a clear roadmap that simplifies each part of the college application process from beginning to end, equipping students with the foundational information they need to navigate the process and organizational tools to keep them on track.
Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Clement Townsend | Chicago, IL
About Clement Townsend: Clement Townsend spent close to twenty years as a Sports Journalist on TV covering numerous big events such as the Super Bowl, NBA All-Star Game, and multiple college football National Championships. In 2018, he founded Broadcasting Career Mentor and began working as a consultant providing media training for schools in Chicago and across the country. His new venture Video Pro Learning gives educators a time-saving way to teach students 21st century skills by turning their lessons into video assignments. This allows students to create videos to display their understanding of what they are learning in the classroom.
About Video Pro Learning: Video Pro Learning is a platform that gives educators an easy, time-saving way to teach students 21st century skills by turning their lessons into video assignments. This provides teachers with an additional tool to evaluate student understanding. The platform teaches a step by step process for students to create videos to display their understanding of what they are learning in the classroom. This leads to greater student engagement, builds communication skills, motivates students to take pride in their work, and offers a deeper level of learning.
Cordero Tanner | Atlanta, GA
About Cordero Tanner: Cordero Tanner is the Founder and Executive Director of Athleaders 360°. He holds a Master of Public Health from Georgia State University and a Bachelor of Science in Sociology from Virginia Tech. Currently, Tanner is pursuing a Master of Science in Sports Administration. Tanner has over ten years of youth and community development experience in various roles. Cordero is a loving husband and dedicated father of a daughter and son, whom he is raising in Atlanta.
About Athleaders 360° Leadership Retreat: Athleaders 360 is a youth leadership development organization that focuses on the unique needs of athletes and their coaches. We believe that talented athletes and committed coaches, trained to lead on and off the field, can serve as catalysts for individual and social change. We meet athletes where they are and use sports as a framework to explore topics like mental health and wellbeing, toxic masculinity, and the intersecting issues of race, class, and sexuality.
Twitter | Instagram| Facebook | LinkedIn
Cornelius T. Finley | Atlanta, GA
About Cornelius T. Finley: As a trained lawyer, Cornelius currently serves as the Founder of Access Unlimited, Inc (AU). AU has partnered with the New York City Department of Education and Dallas Independent School District, thereby overseeing college and career readiness for over ten schools. In a greater attempt, Access Unlimited will open its first Charter School in Atlanta. Cornelius holds a bachelor’s degree in English/Philosophy, two law degrees, and is currently an Executive MBA student.
About The James Baldwin Early College for Boys: JBECB focuses on equity while fostering the diversity of Black and Latino masculinity. JBECB serves as a Pre-K — 5th-grade educational hub where young boys unpack the complexities of self while being educated in the liberal arts and obtaining a broad grasp of literature, art, music, history, and the sciences, in the name of discovering one’s ‘major’ via a specialized curriculum that’s rooted in performance-based systems that are cemented in college and career excellence. Complimentary, JBECB’s educators and parents will work together to ensure unlimited access via the mere dismissal of indoctrination and the slaying of subjugation.
Crystal Wash & Cortez Wash| Chicago, IL
About Crystal Wash: Crystal Wash is from Chicago, IL. She is founder of Consortium for Educational Research and Advancement LLC (CERA), a curriculum development organization. Crystal is dedicated to improving curriculum models that integrates culturally responsive pedagogy. Crystal has worked in the school improvement space for several years as a technical assistance partner and school principal. She created Resilient Mentors as a curriculum that uses mentors to teach students how to persevere against any obstacle.
About Cortez Wash: Cortez Wash is confounder of Consortium for Educational Research and Advancement. Cortez served as a middle school teacher English teacher in Chicago Public Schools.
About Resilient Mentors: Resilient Mentors is a curriculum that uses the stories of famous people to serve as mentors to middle school students. These stories teach students how to persevere against obstacles. The curriculum uses the art of storyteller to teach middle schoolers how to use their own stories to uplift each other and serve as a mentor to someone else. Students learn to tell their story and use their backgrounds to move forward despite the biased information that they have been fed.
Daisy Han & Esther Jean Barela | Austin, TX
About Daisy Han: 한혜진/Heyjin/Daisy is a first-generation Korean-American born in San Jose to immigrants who creatively innovated new ways to belong to one another as a community. Han studied Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley; Montessori education at St Mary’s college; and political and social thought at Harvard Graduate School of Education. In 2017, she founded Embracing Equity, a national nonprofit that provides immersive online adult learning, coaching, and guidance on the inner work that is necessary for collective social change. In 2022, she founded Dripping Springs Montessori School, an Embracing Equity Lab School that moves anti-racism values into daily practice.
About Esther Jean Barela: Esther Barela Bemis was born to the A:shiwi Tribe, an Indigenous Pueblo called Zuni. She is the mother to 18-year-old Raina who is currently a first year student at the University of Arizona. She’s also a devoted cat mom to Frosti and Gentleheart. Esther is a trained Primary Montessori Lead Guide in her next educational contribution, a learning space dedicated to enriching and honoring the rapidly expanding minds of the youngest learners.
About Dripping Springs Montessori School: We are a Lab School with 100% certified Montessori & Embracing Equity trained educators focused on nurturing curiosity for a lifelong love of learning. To have an optimal learning environment, we start by taking care of our teachers as the professionals they are; healthy teachers = healthy children. We offer the most competitive compensation in the country to honor the tremendous work and skills required (minimum $65K + full benefits). We welcome the child, meet them where they are, and treat them with the dignity they deserve.
Instagram | Facebook |Daisy’s LinkedIn
Dani Lopez | Bronx, NY
About Dani Lopez: Dani is a proud first-generation, low-income Latinx, transfer student, QuestBridge Scholar, and social entrepreneur South Bronx. Dani owes what she is to the hard work of her single immigrant mother, NYC public schools, and the labor movement. After graduating Amherst College she transitioned into financial aid while creating college access and civic education programming for nonprofits serving her communities in NYC. Dani knows first-hand as a student and financial aid administrator how bureaucratic and institutional gaps can derail students’ futures and uses her education and labor policy background to create resources to empower and advocate for marginalized students and families.
About FinAid Muse: FinAid Muse is a web platform designed help the most marginalized students through the federal financial aid process from gathering documentation, reviewing FAFSA completion, and assisting students with next steps and resources for maximizing aid and engaging financial aid offices. We focus on first-generation, low-income, nontraditional, queer, parent-students, eligible non-citizens, DACA, and other ‘niche’ groups in order to reduce the over $2 billion annually unclaimed in Pell Grants these communities disproportionately miss out on. In the process the portal empowers students to successfully navigate and advocate for themselves within governmental and institutional bureaucracies.
Dawn-Marie Luna, LMFT #131283 | Long Beach, CA
About Dawn-Marie Luna, LMFT #131283: My work focuses on guiding families to becoming more emotionally aware and knowledgeable of their children’s mental health struggles. I incorporate various modalities of therapeutic activities. Complex trauma is one of my specialties and working with children 0–5 years and their families is another specialty. I also focus on providing affirming therapy to those who are black indigenous and queer/trans individuals. I also work with couples, and women who have experienced childhood trauma
I work to guide women towards leaning into their feminine power. You will learn coping skills to deal with everyday stressors. Whether our sessions are virtual or in-person we will use art, writing, movement, and bibliotherapy to process and discuss feelings and events. I use psychoeducation to increase awareness on how stress impacts our bodies.
About Sweet Light Therapeutic Center: Sweet Light is a therapeutic centre serving children 0–6 who’s families are impacted by environmental stressors such. Sweet Light offers mental health services to children and their families using play therapy, and child-parent psychotherapy as a way to strengthen family attachments and repair ruptures. Our school is an alternative option for children who have been pushed out of traditional preschools, head-starts and day cares. Our mission is to interrupt the cradle to prison-pipeline for black and indigenous children.
Twitter | Instagram| Facebook| LinkedIn
Delicia Williams | Union City, CA
About Delicia Williams: Delicia Williams a special education teacher in the state of Georgia. Mrs. Williams became an educator in 2007 after earning her teacher’s certification from the University of Georgia. She has taught grades 2nd-8th. Delicia is also the proud parent of an adult with Autism; She credits her son Jeffrey with giving her the motivation she needed while developing STRIVE for Exceptional Excellence and the Exceptional Excellence Employment Seeking App. Delicia looks forward to enhancing her ideas with guidance from fellows in the 4.o community. She hopes to give equal supports to others within the 4.0 community.
About Exceptional Excellence Employment Seeking App: Exceptional Excellence is a Employment Seeking App specially — designed to support disabled teenagers and adults with job seeking. The Exceptional Excellence App is a digital platform with in-app accessibility features offering vocational rehabilitation supports. Developed to make a societal impact, the Exceptional Excellence Employment App provide vocational service to help users with living self-sufficiently. In App features can be tailored to a users needs, thereby increasing their chances of retaining a job for an extended period. The Exceptional Excellence App is available @Apple App Store and @GooglePlay.
Twitter| Instagram |Facebook | LinkedIn
Dhyia Phillips | Chicago, IL
About Dhyia Phillips: Dhyia Phillips brings 15 years of experience as a strategy professional having led high stakes, multi-stakeholder, million-dollar initiatives in the higher and public education, mission-driven, government, and private sectors. She serves as a Deputy Managing Director for Project Evident, a boutique social impact consulting firm, under its Nonprofit and Philanthropy practice. Dhyia was recently appointed to the Gender Equity Advisory Committee for the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). She holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, an MEd in Higher Education Administration from Loyola University Chicago and is a Board Residency alum.
About Middle Passage: Middle Passage attempts to be a convener at the intersection of workforce demands, employers, systems of education and the individual. The path to successfully entering into the middle class is not coordinated among these industry players. Further, the approach attempts to catch individuals who have a motivation for upward mobility, that are at critical life points that can change the trajectory of their lives towards the middle class.
Donovan Williams | Summerville, SC
About Donovan Williams: Donovan Williams is a man of God, husband, and father. Born and raised in the Charleston tri-county area, Donovan has deep roots to the “Lowcountry” of South Carolina. Donovan is a graduate of Clemson University, BS in Industrial Engineering and MBA. After being so inspired while finishing his MBA, Donovan started his non-profit, STREAMS, an organization teaching Black students how to build wealth through financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and investing. Donovan is committed to building a future where young, black communities gain and utilize access to the foundations of economic empowerment and he’s starting that journey right at “home.”
About STREAMS: STREAMS is an educational program that teaches young Black students how to build wealth through financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and investing. Streams is building a future where Black young people gain and utilize access to the skills that create economic empowerment and long-term financial security. Our mission is to battle financial stagnation in the young, Black community. Streams empowers young Black people through financial principles and offers the support to apply these principles practically to real-world experiences, providing a supportive environment to learn how to build wealth and pursue a thriving financial future.
Doris Hage | Detroit, MI
About Doris Hage: Doris Hage has been an integral part of Post Secondary Education, helping to facilitate the openings of Post-Secondary schools. She has also spent years in community advocacy, assisting people to operate from their core. She has developed multiple programs, workshops, and classes and taught others about social issues inhibiting growth within a community or business through the years. Doris has also served on numerous roundtables, spoken at various events, and participated in panel discussions regarding workforce development.
When you meet Doris Hage, one undeniable thing is her passion and purpose to help. She has a contagious energy and inspiring energy.
About Life on Purpose Detroit, LLC: Life on Purpose Detroit, LLC is a virtual training agency. We provide real-life training based on Character Education. We focus on finding purpose and well-being for youth. Our mission is simple, and we meet students right where they are.
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Dr. Cierra Kaler-Jones | Alexandria, VA
About Dr. Cierra Kaler-Jones: Dr. Cierra Kaler-Jones, Ph.D. (she/her) is a social justice educator, writer, choreographer, and artist based in the D.C. Metro Area. Over the past ten years, Cierra has learned alongside preschoolers, K-12 students, college students, and adults as a dance, art, and history educator. She started Black Girls S.O.A.R (Scholarship, Organizing, Arts, and Resistance) in 2020 to co-create a space for and with Black girls to use art and political education to fuel social change.
About Black Girls SOAR: Black Girls SOAR (Scholarship, Organizing, Arts, and Resistance) is a community-based program that uses art and political education to fuel social change. The program works alongside Black girls in the D.C. Metro Area to create arts-based healing spaces, provide political education and research training, and center Black girls’ experiences in educator/administrator professional development.
Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn
Dr. Dannielle Joy Davis | St. Louis, MO
About Dr. Dannielle Joy Davis: Dr. Dannielle Joy Davis is Founder of The Circle of Excellence, a STEM centered program that promotes life long learning experiences of STEM to communities across the globe. Dr. Davis looks forward to building collaborations throughout the fellowship.
About From STEM Teams to STEM Careers: From STEM Teams to STEM Careers utilizes the science fair experience as a tool to promote STEM careers to teens.
Dr. Darnell L. Yates | Brooklyn, NY
About Dr. Darnell L. Yates: Dr. Darnell Yates is a native of Harlem, New York. His passion is to provide knowledge, skills, experience and best practices within educational leadership and develop practical ways to support the whole child. Dr. Yates is a veteran educator, who is passionate, eager, and determined to help close the achievement gap through interactive rigorous teaching, school counseling, exceptional education and school leadership. Dr. Yates has considerable experience teaching at the elementary, middle, and high school level. He has served as a school administrator, professional school counselor and teacher. He exudes the definition of a passionate and self-driven educator
Education has always been a priority for him. As a result, he earned an Ed.D. from Argosy University in Higher & Postsecondary Education, a Postgraduate degree from Western Governors University in Educational Leadership, Master of Education in School Counseling from Cambridge College, Master of Science & Master of Education from Virginia State University in both Special Education & Elementary Education and a bachelor’s degree in Criminology/Criminal Justice.
Currently, he serves as a Network-Director of Curriculum & Instruction: STEM and as a professor at GCU. Dr. Yates recently published his first book, the Autobiography of Dr. Darnell L. S. Yates I: Celebrating 21 Years in Education “I Can’t Make This Up. Everything is a Teachable Moment.” He is the CEO/Founder of Really Impacting K-12 Inc & YX2 LLC — Boys Mentoring Program “Generations of Leaders” for at-risk youth. This boy’s mentoring program has been implemented in New York, Virginia and Maryland. Serving underprivileged students is one of his missions. He constantly thinks about the students who have walked in his shoes and is solution based oriented in finding ways to give back to his community. The Boys Mentoring program is a local establishment for now. However, the ultimate goal is to ensure that this program becomes known globally!
Really Investing in Generations through Mentorship, Counseling & Leadershi
About Generation of Leaders Boys Mentoring Program: Really Impacting K-12 is a non-profit organization created to support children at the elementary and middle school level. Generation of Leaders Boys Mentoring Program “GOL” is a mentoring program designed to intercede and interact with “at-risk” youth. The program is established to close the achievement gap and teach young men self awareness. Implementing GOL will give students the opportunity to have peer mentors and learn what it takes to grow and evolve into a global citizen. The idea is to have community affiliates and other men come into the school and serve as mentors while ultimately changing the trajectory of students who are not affluent and/or need support. This program will give students the opportunity to develop a skill-set that can be used for a lifetime. The focus area is for children in the Elementary/Middle School setting grades 2–8.
Instagram | LinkedIn | www.reallyimpactingk-12.org | www.autobiographyofdrdarnellyates.com
Dr. Misty D. Freeman | Dothan, AL
About Dr. Misty D. Freeman: Dr. Misty D. Freeman is an educator with over 20 years of experience. Dr. Freeman is the Founder of Mocha Sprout. Mocha Sprout was founded in 2021 and is an educational consultant entity committed to making others aware of the effect of unconscious bias on students of color. As an educator, she is concerned with students of color not engaging in the learning environment and the achievement gap continuing to grow. Dr. Freeman is also passionate about the plight of Gen-Z black girls. She looks forward to working as a fellow with 4.0.
About ConsciousEd: ConsciousEd is a web platform for higher education students preparing to work with students of color. It empowers future educators with the tools to identify and address unconscious bias. In addition, the portal will provide courses that address diversity and racial equity in education. Lessons are based on neuroscience and examine unconscious bias from a brain perspective.
Twitter | Instagram| Facebook | LinkedIn
Dr. Shontia L. Lowe | La Plata, MD
About Dr. Shontia L. Lowe: Dr. Shontia L. Lowe has 15+ years of progressive experiences in the education and nonprofit sectors. Her career has been singularly devoted to helping communities that are considered high-risk, to create access and opportunity educationally and professionally, using an equity and an integration lens. Dr. Lowe is passionate about cultivating needed changes systemically and on-the-ground through leadership, coaching, and mentoring, so that individuals can operate at their best. This led her to create The Legacy Lead Network, focusing on strategic Mentorship, Advising, and Coaching, for youth ages 13/14 to young adult.
About The Legacy Lead Network: The Legacy Lead Network works with students one-on-one to ensure they are motivated, growing, and setting themselves up for success, and for matriculation into competitive colleges and careers for as little, if any, debt as possible, via Mentoring, Advising, College Admissions, Career and College Coaching, and Youth Development.
Dr. Shontoria Walker, Danielle Ross, David McDonald, and Andre Ross | Houston and Dallas, TX
About Dr. Shontoria Walker: Dr. Shontoria Walker is a graduate of the University of Houston with a degree in Professional Leadership with an emphasis in Literacy. Her research focuses on using culturally relevant pedagogy to influence literacy achievement for middle school Black Male students based on her experiences as a former 8th grade English teacher at an all-boys preparatory academy. She also currently serves as the Executive Director of Education PowerED. In her everyday work, she is committed to collaborating with teachers, administrators, and district leaders to ensure that all students receive an equitable literacy education across the district.
About Danielle Ross: Danielle Ross graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science in Communication Studies and a Masters of Education from Southern Methodist University with a concentration in Gifted and Talented Curriculum and Instruction. Danielle’s style of pedagogy emphasizes the importance of cultural relevancy and authentic student engagement in the classroom. She co-founded a social enterprise, Education PowerED, with the mission to generate culturally responsive solutions and resources in order to end educational inequity for students of color.
About David McDonald: David McDonald graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with dual degrees in Applied Learning and Development and African and African American Studies. He received his Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning from Southern Methodist University specializing in Gifted and Talented Instruction for culturally diverse learners. He is now the Founder and managing partner of Education PowerED and leverages his influence across organizations such as NAACP, National Urban League, Black Chamber of Commerce and more.
About Andre Ross: A native of Gary, Indiana, Andre received a Bachelor of Science in Business with a concentration in Management from New York University. His experiences there compelled him to pursue a career in education to help diminish the ways in which identity markers impact educational and career trajectories. Andre served as an 8th Grade Mathematics Teacher at The Dr. Billy Earl Dad Middle School in South Dallas. In June 2018, Andre accepted a role with Teach For America where he serves as Manager, Teacher Leadership Development. Andre is co-founder and Partner with the Education PowerED family.
About Research Practice Partnerships with Education PowerED 501(c)(3): Education PowerED is an education non-profit that promotes culturally responsive training, resources, and identity-based education. Education PowerED’s mission is to spark a revolution through education that liberates our communities, wherever they may be. Our organization is committed to developing Research-Practice Partnerships; collaborative, long-term relationships between researchers and teacher-educators that will increase the number of culturally responsive action research educators in the classroom that serve to improve our practice, inform the teaching profession, and allows modeling for future teachers to become practitioner-researchers in four domains; Culture Management, Community Partnerships, Authentic Engagement, and Social Justice Curriculum.
Twitter | Instagram | Dr. Shontoria’s LinkedIn; Danielle’s LinkedIn; David’s LinkedIn; Andre’s LinkedIn
Dr. Soraya Matthews | Lexington, KY
About Dr. Soraya Matthews: Dr. Soraya Matthews is a veteran educator who resides with her family in Lexington, KY. She has served as an advocate for equity, committed to advancing educational opportunities for the most vulnerable students and underrepresented population. As the founder of an educational non-profit, EDquity Now, Dr. Matthews is dedicated to supporting and mentoring Black and Latina women to ensure equitable representation in the educational leadership field. She is eager to partner and network with other 4.0 Fellows and Alumni to create opportunities for growth and development for herself and others.
About The TAP’D Leadership Network: The TAP’D Women Leadership Network is designed as a brave space for Black and Latina female educators (from public, charter, and private schools) who either are current leaders or aspire to be leaders. The TAP’D Network will create and strengthen the leadership pipeline by ensuring equitable representation of women of color by providing excellent mentoring opportunities, professional learning, advocacy, resources and solutions to problems that have historically created barriers to access.
Eric Harrield | Jersey City, NJ
About Eric Harrield: Eric Harrield is an educator based in Jersey City, NJ. He has worked in education for almost 20 years first as a basketball coach then as a dean of students and program manager. Eric is dedicated to educating the whole child through culturally responsive pedagogies. His venture, Star Prep Academy was birthed out of a doctoral class assignment that just kept gaining traction through discussions with professors, colleagues, parents, and community stakeholders. Through his unique perspective and experience as a music marketing executive, basketball coach, and now school founder is looking to bring his dream to reality.
About Star Prep Academy: STAR PREP ACADEMY Will Graduate Students Who Are Accomplished In Academic, Artistic, Athletic, And Vocational Skills One Would Expect; At Ease Beyond Their Borders; Truly Fluent In A Second And Third Language; Good Writers And Speakers; Confident Because They Excel In A Particular Passion; Exceptional No Matter Their Art, Sport Or Vocation; Emotionally Unafraid And Physically Fit; Humble About Their Gifts And Possess A Generous Spirit; Trustworthy; Aware That Their Behavior Makes A Difference In Our Ecosystem; Great Leaders When They Can Be, Good Followers When They Should Be; On Their Way To A Well-chosen Higher Education Or Professional Career.
Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn
Felicia Freeman | Greensboro, NC
About Felicia Freeman: Felicia Freeman (she/her) is a resident of Greensboro, North Carolina (Guilford County). She has been a Guilford County educator since 20005. In 2017 Felicia earned her Masters of School Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She holds a doctorate (focused on educational disparities among disenfranchised populations) in educational leadership from High Point University, High Point, North Carolina. Felicia’s venture, Boanerges: Children of Thunder! seeks to address education’s lack of history regarding disenfranchised populations, particularly African Americans. With Boanerges, Felicia will provide an engaging online platform giving students’ voice to truthful history authentically, creatively, & passionately.
About Boanerges: Children of Thunder!: Boanerges: Children of Thunder! is an American History portal for students of all ages. Boanerges will utilize an online educational platform to provide an engaging interactive format by which students learn overlooked, diminished, and forgotten components of American history. A full online library of multimedia offerings accompanied by interactive components is in view. Giving students voice to story their history, Boanerges will provide a different lens by which disenfranchised students access and contribute to their learning. As seminal research indicates, students are more highly engaged in the learning process when they see mirror images of themselves. Boanerges provides that mirror!
Gabriella Carrethers | Denver, CO
About Gabriella Carrethers: Gabriella is passionate about racial justice and equitable access to education, as well as sharing the counter narratives of Black and Brown people. Gabriella’s venture, Radical Moves, seeks to highlight the change that is possible when you give youth the tools they need to be successful. Radical Moves is an advocacy incubator designed to focus on identity, leadership, and advocacy/organizing development of our youth leaders. After completion of the program, youth have a hands-on paid opportunity to further develop their advocacy work in order to increase the leadership capacity and volume of youth leaders in the Denver Metro area.
About Radical Moves: Radical Moves seeks to highlight the change that is possible when you give youth the tools they need to be successful. Radical Moves is an advocacy incubator designed to focus on identity, leadership, and advocacy/organizing development of our youth leaders. After completion of the program, youth have a hands-on paid opportunity to further develop their advocacy work in order to increase the leadership capacity and volume of youth leaders in the Denver Metro area.
Genie Dawkins | Washington, D.C.
About Genie Dawkins: Genie Dawkins is an author, special education and Family lifestyle, consultant. She holds a BA in Sociology from Coppin State University and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Maryland. Additionally, she is a certified Integrative Health Coach. Genie uses her skills and experience as a leader in her field by empowering families with special needs children. She’s a proud board member of the Parents Amplifying Voices in Education, this powerful group advocates for education reform for children with the input of those children along with their families. She is the author of the best-selling book “Not My Child” “Navigating Your Child’s Difficulties with IEPs” and “creator of the Joyful Family Planner”, educational courses, coaching, and events, (both live and virtual). She also has a podcast and a blog called The Parenting Cipher.
About The Growth Cipher: The Growth Cipher serves Black students between the ages of 14–17 who currently or formerly had an Individual Education Plan; within the District of Columbia area. Students who believe they are underachieving because the school system has not provided tools such as self-awareness, advocacy skills, and Individual Education Plans that will support them. And their caregivers who desire the best educational outcomes for their children but do not know how to support their kids.
Gerard Germann, Korey Batey, & Joe Barravecchia | Detroit, MI
About Gerard Germann: Andrew Germann is a educator at heart, two years ago he started his business for product development. While he was working with clients he found more joy in the process of teaching the skills to utilize maker spaces and other low cost alternatives to a design firm. After learning through doing, he stumbled on his childhood passion of combat robots. Which started his desire to learn all things mechanical from an early age. Now he is establishing a company to teach everything needed to build your own, as well as giving the students the ability to be more self-sufficient!
About Korey Batey: Korey L. Batey, is a 33-year-old father of 3, social entrepreneur born and raised in the city of Detroit. Graduating from Detroit Central High School and attending some college his passion lead him to various positions in the technology industry. After stressful years as a cable technician, Korey Batey quit his position as the cable guy and followed his passion for community development FULL-TIME.
About Tinker Labs L3C: Tinker Labs is a collection of skilled subject matter experts that train self empowering skills to allow for humans to become more independent and fulfilled. We are starting this educational journey with a focus on combat robots, allowing students to learn 3D modeling and 3D printing skills. These skills alone will allow for individuals to create/maintain household goods.
Our school started with Andrew Germann, a military veteran who wanted to share his vast skills to help socially impactful projects. While on the journey, he found more success in teaching.
Facebook |Andrew’s LinkedIn | Korey’s LinkedIn
Hannah Imberman | New Orleans, LA
About Hannah Imberman: Hannah Imberman is a STEM educator based in New Orleans, LA. She has worked for the last 10 years in schools all of the world, the last 5 of which have been in New Orleans schools. Hannah is committed to encouraging curiosity through creative exploration and advocating for STEM education to be incorporated in schools. She founded the Fab Lab in 2020 by creating a mobile STEM program to incorporate hands on learning exercises in classrooms to increase student engagement and interest in the sciences. She looks forward to learning from other ventures and building relationships across the fellowship.
About A.C.H.I.E.V.E Fab Lab: The A.C.H.I.E.V.E. Fab Lab is a program that reimagines what a maker space in schools looks like. By creating a complete modular curriculum that can be incorporated inside and outside of the classroom, the Fab Lab looks to empower students to discover the ways that technology and the sciences already exist in their lives, as well as the tools to explore and engage with these technologies. By providing partner schools with these free resources, our program seeks to lower the access barrier for marginalized students and democratize the future of the technology industry.
Hillary Do | Philadelphia, PA
About Hillary Do: Hillary is a community-builder based in Philadelphia, PA. She has experience in local government, business, civic technology, and grassroots organizing. She believes we need to invest resources in local grassroots leaders to bring lasting change, and imagines a future where every neighborhood thrives in a community-led way. During the fellowship, she is looking forward to building long-lasting relationships with others in the pursuit of justice.
About PhillyBOLT Grassroots Leaders Accelerator: The PhillyBOLT Grassroots Leaders Accelerator supports grassroots leaders in Philadelphia working to bring justice to their neighborhoods. We provide a rigorous curriculum in community organizing, strategic management, and navigating the ecosystem of change. At the same time, we work to expand the network of change-makers and ensure they can do this work sustainably into the future. All participants are paid for their time because community organizing is valuable work — it is how we build a better future.
Ionsul Ferrin, Jennifer Nicolaisen, & Michelle Kelly | Candler, NC
About Ionsul Ferrin: Ionsul Ferrin is a group facilitator and Training Coordinator with SeekHealing, a revolutionary non-profit that provides meaningful experiences of interpersonal connection to people at any stage on a healing journey. Ionsul is dedicated to helping build an equitable and just world through working toward dismantling the hierarchies of oppression, by creating spaces where healing can happen in connection with all people, no matter their diverging social identities and lived experiences. Her passion is teaching, modeling, and facilitating healthy communication skills and other techniques of fostering relationships built in honesty, trust, and compassionate connection.
About Jennifer Nicolaisen: Jennifer Nicolaisen is the co-founder and Executive Director of SeekHealing, a social health nonprofit that provides free spaces of authentic human connection to anyone on any stage of healing from trauma and addiction. In 2018, she started the pilot program of SeekHealing in Asheville, North Carolina. Since that time, the organization has served over 3,500 participants and spread to 3 more communities, including an online community of meetings that is attended by people world-wide. Jennifer is passionate about creating a more connected world that we all want to live in, rather than escape from.
About Michelle Kelly: Michelle Kelly is on the leadership team of SeekHealing, a social health nonprofit dedicated to providing spaces and trainings for authentic human connection. Michelle has a background in education, as well as three adult children, and is dedicated to creating a more connected world in which humans of all ages can thrive.
About SeekHealing’s Youth Connection Incubators: SeekHealing’s Youth Connection Incubators (YCI) are afterschool groups that provide a fun and emotionally safe environment so that youth can drop the masks they often feel forced to wear in the world, and talk about what really matters to them. Specially geared for underserved youth with inadequate access to mental health resources, YCI’s are professionally facilitated groups designed to elicit a sense of closeness and trust among all participants so that they can support one another through whatever they are going through, and know that their experiences matter.
Jamaya Walker, LMSW | Houston, TX
About Jamaya Walker, LMSW: Jamaya Walker, LMSW is a social worker and 2x author based in Houston, TX. With her experience with fatherlessness, she uses creative arts as a positive way to deal with her emotions and bring awareness to the importance of father-daughter relationships and the impact absent fathers have on young women. Walker is the CEO of Daddyless Daughter Inc focused on bringing awareness to the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical impact absent fathers have on women and provides a safe place through events and seminars for women to come together and discuss and overcome issues rooted in being daddyless.
About Daddyless Daughter Inc.: Assist fatherless women and girls with combating mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical trauma due to being fatherless through the creative arts and seminars.
Daddyless Daughter’s vision is to be recognized as a nationwide organization that helps fatherless girls and women reconcile, re-empower, and regain control of their childhoods. We will complete this goal by providing a safe place for girls and women to heal individually and collectively with hopes of changing the negative stigma attached to fatherlessness.
Jamel Adkins-Sharif (Boston, MA) & Johanny Mejia (Brooklyn, NY)
About Jamel Adkins-Sharif: Jamel Adkins-Sharif holds an EdD in Urban Education, Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Massachusetts-Boston. His research explores social justice leadership, race and equity in schools. Jamel has had a successful career as a special education teacher of history and mathematics in New York, and was founding principal of both an elementary charter and district middle school in Massachusetts. Before leading the Blackstone School in Boston, he led and helped overhaul an alternative high school program in Randolph. Additionally, Jamel served two terms on the Principal’s Advisory Cabinet of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and currently consults with the Department on culturally proficient school improvement. Jamel lives in Cambridge with his wife and two sons.
About Johanny Mejia: Johanny Mejia currently works at Eskolta as a Senior Research and Design Partner, where she’s worked on projects ranging from leading professional learning communities with DOE offices on feedback and improvement science, and school-based projects leading teams of teachers to develop tools and procedures for feedback and conferencing. Before joining Eskolta, Johanny received a B.S. in Business Management and Marketing from Boston College, but it was really her extracurriculars that left a major impact on her. After graduating in 2011, she decided to postpone a career in business to teach English in Seoul, South Korea, and she loved it! When she returned to New York in 2014, she joined Teach For America and since then worked at charter schools in Brooklyn with grades 3–5 as a Special Education Teacher. While teaching, Johanny also received her M.S.Ed in Teaching Students with Disabilities in Childhood Education from Brooklyn College. In her spare time, Johanny enjoys traveling, trying new foods, and checking out live music.
About Inclusive Leadership Fellowship (could change): For us, inclusive leadership is a mindset and set of practices that promote and support the journey towards culturally responsiveness and anti-racism. Inclusive leaders meet organizational goals while also liberating human potential from hierarchy and oppression. It is a way of leading that is reflective and collaborative, centers relationships, and that recognizes and affirms strengths as a way to conceptualize, allocate, and delegate resources and responsibilities.The Inclusive Leadership Fellowship will teach the methods, processes and skills of liberatory design and inclusive leadership in school and district settings all while cultivating a space for educators that is grounded in collaboration, connection, critical action, joy and trust. We know an effective fellowship has to balance theory, pedagogy, and concrete application to change how school administrators lead and engage with others. Through our work with educators, we acknowledge that the design process is a tool that can help move us towards action and new designs, but alone it can lead to inequitable and racist outcomes. We also know that talking about racism and our long history of oppression can feel paralyzing; the complexity of racism on individual, institutional, and structural levels can feel insurmountable. We hope by combining both theory and tools of inclusive leadership and liberatory design, we can support the mindset shifts and concrete application needed to create more equitable, culturally responsive school environments for teachers and students.
Christopher Anderson | Houston, TX
About JChristopher Anderson: JChristopher Anderson is a life-based educator from Houston, TX. He has worked in the inner-city school systems for 10+ years. Also, he grew up in the cowboy/agriculture industry. He is an avid outdoorsman with deep roots in the rodeo world. JChristopher, while teaching, saw a need within the school system to give youth a different approach to learning. He founded Triple 7 “Ranch in 2016 with the intent on assisting youth in the transition from boy to young man, all while promoting self-care and evolution through animal therapy and agricultural learning.
About Triple 7 Ranch: Triple 7 Ranch empowers young men to overcome unthinkable challenges, rebuild their lives and become whole through positive treatment and compassionate rehabilitation. Breaking the cycle of abuse/neglect in order to develop future leaders and influential community members.
Jessica Marshall (Warwick, MA) & Susan Hollins (Greenfield, MA)
About Jessica Marshall: Jessica Marshall lives in Warwick, MA, a rural, remote town where she, with her husband, raise three school-age children to be literate, civic-minded, and stewards of the environment. A physical therapist for 28 years, she builds relationships in healing and health. Jessica is taking a leadership role in her town’s Rural School Redesign initiative spending hours on governance, transition and tuition agreements, policy, curriculum, and publicity for her town school, re-opening in 2023. She enjoys projects and problem-solving. Her relaxed, warm personality makes her a welcomed, collaborative team member
About Susan Hollins: Susan Hollins is a retired school superintendent whose forty-years of central office experience was primarily fixing and redesigning schools and programs that were falling apart or grossly in non-compliance. From these challenges and a creative arts background, Susan developed expertise designing (from scratch) and redesigning district and chartered schools. Susan’s hobbies and interests include film, classical piano, and reading cookbooks. With eight certifications and specialization in budget and policy, Susan consults. She has served as an elected member of a city school committee.
About The Global Classroom Program: Addressing Identity, Diversity, and Inclusion with Rural Children: The Global Classroom Initiative will expand the world of our children, their teaching staff, and their families. This model can change the homogeneity of these children’s classmates and classrooms, helping them become more culturally sophisticated people. Building foundational relationships with all people in collaborative project schoolwork promotes an inclusive philosophy as the norm. Nurturing fundamental kindness is at the heart of this global classroom, as it has been for the town school. Children with the understanding of basic humanity can walk into the larger world- or into their own communities with greater, wider inherent understanding of belonging and connection
Jo Thompkins | Houston, TX
About Jo Thompkins: Jo Thompkins is a seasoned educator with more than 15 years of experience in training and coaching. She is passionate about growing strong conscientious leaders. Ms Thompkins founded Mentoring Minds Matters for the purpose of providing impactful communication strategies to school administrators and organization leaders.
About Mentoring Minds Matters: The field of education is in crisis. Teachers are leaving the profession in droves. One of the mains reasons cited for this mass exodus is the lack of support educators claimed to have encountered from their school admin. Mentoring Minds Matters seeks to address this issue by providing best practice strategies in mentoring and coaching to school leaders.
Jonathan Ho & Jackson Foster | San Jose, CA
About Jonathan Ho: Jonathan Ho is a former Wharton grad and financial analyst turned high school physics/math/music teacher who is always looking for ways to reduce gatekeeping and to add efficient access to bureaucratic systems. As an education professional, he has actively participated in many systems that support student learning: industry-oriented curriculum design, program management for high-need students, school accreditation, and even summer school principalship. His experience as a trilingual, low-income, first generation college student grounds him and gives him the emotional resolve to continue helping students even when circumstances are challenging. It is serendipitous that his professional backgrounds in business and education are converging to help empower education-forward creators to use technology so that students everywhere can have access to inspiring learning experiences.
About Jackson Foster: Jackson Foster is a past Bioengineering graduate from UPenn turned strategy consultant turned MBA graduate from UCLA Anderson who values empathy, mentorship, and community building. Over the years, he has built a track record of successful strategy and operations projects for multi-billion dollar Oncology portfolios and single-product pre-launch companies alike. His superpowers are in the areas of relationships and teambuilding, communication, and creative thinking. One of his favorite things to do while reading or listening to podcasts is think about how principles from one industry might apply to his own. He is extremely passionate about education, and has volunteered time to mentoring high school students graduating from high school himself. It is a dream come true to work towards leaving a lasting and global mark on the world that helps people discover their own passions through education.
About Edily Learning: Edily is a mobile platform that takes inspiration from the creativity, remixibility, and entertaining magic of social apps like TikTok and YouTube and brings it to an app focused on education, learning goals, and personalized content.
Twitter | Instagram| Facebook | Jonathan’s LinkedIn | Jackson’s LinkedIn
Julie Obbard | Berkeley, CA
About Julie Obbard: Julie Obbard is a strategic advisor and consultant committed to ensuring all students have access to a world-class education and a bright future. Julie brings nearly two decades of experience in the education sector, working with school systems, nonprofits, and philanthropic organizations on strategic planning, program design, talent management, research and evaluation. Julie is dedicated to building a diverse educator workforce. She founded Elevate Teaching in 2020 with the goal of recruiting and retaining highly effective, diverse teachers for California public schools. She is excited to join the Fellowship and collaborate with others to deepen and scale Elevate’s impact.
About Elevate Future Educator Fellowship: Elevate Teaching is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a diverse educator workforce. Elevate Teaching partners with California school systems and teacher preparation programs to build new pathways into teaching designed to attract and retain diverse, exceptional teachers committed to providing a world class education for all students.
Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Karen Burks | St. Francisville, LA
About Karen Burks: Karen Burks is a native of St. Francisville, Louisiana. Karen is a servant leader, social entrepreneur, and board volunteer. She has over ten years of experience, skills, and knowledge in the financial institution industry, five years of higher education instruction and workforce development training. She founded Burks Management Firm a boutique business-consulting firm where she provide economic education training, workforce development and business consulting. She has been providing financial literacy, college and career planning to high school and college freshman scholars for five years. Karen is has a passion for building new partnerships, promoting leadership engagement, and implementing impactful transformations.
About Burks Management Firm | FUNDCENT$: FUNDCENT$ provides innovative economic mobility to high school scholars. FUNDCENT$ is a
nontraditional workforce development training platform applying life skills resources to increase financial well-being, economic education, and college and career readiness. The services will uplift high school scholars for overall advancement.
Katharine Da Silva | Union, NJ
About Katharine Da Silva: The daughter of Alceu and Ana Lucia, Katharine Da Silva is a first-generation Brazilian American woman obsessed with helping people embrace all of who they are. For the past ten years, she has had the great privilege of learning with and serving as an educator, advisor and advocate to brilliant students of color. Led by her love of her community, Katharina’s great passion is engaging young people in showing up authentically to disrupt systems of oppression in higher ed and beyond. A believer in the innate wisdom and potential of individuals, her work strives to aid children, young and old, to tap into their strengths to serve as vital keys to a brighter future for all.
About Knowledge of Self: A Road Map to You: Knowledge of Self is empowerment centered executive functioning program focused on asset based goal setting, self-care and skill building in order to equip students of color authentically and effectively navigate through college and beyond.
Katie Schober | Milwaukee, WI
About Katie Schober: Katie Schober is an educator with ten years of experience supporting students’ discovery of their own sparks of curiosity through hands-on explorations in the STEAM fields. She founded STEAM Milwaukee to address the STEAM experience and materials gap that exists daily in many classrooms in the Milwaukee area. She has an M.Ed from the University of Notre Dame and a BS in Biological Sciences from Marquette University. Her passions outside of teaching include spending time with family, traveling, exploring Wisconsin’s quirks, going for walks around Milwaukee, reading, and salsa dancing.
About Leah Rosenbaum: Leah is an education researcher and designer who focuses on playful, hands-on math activities. She received her PhD in Education from the University of California, Berkeley and her BA in Mathematics from Scripps College. In her free time, she enjoys going on walks and bike rides with her husband and toddler and cuddling her two large dogs.
About STEAM Milwaukee: STEAM Milwaukee equips Milwaukee students, teachers, and community groups with access to materials that promote the excitement of discovery and development of strong skills in the domains of science, technology, engineering, art, and math.
By sharing NGSS-backed science materials, robotics and data collection equipment, maker space materials and math manipulatives, students gain more equitable access to the high-quality STEAM experiences that encourage future career exploration.
Katie’s LinkedIn | Leah’s LinkedIn
Kim Riley | Kansas City, MO
About Kim Riley: Kim Riley is a social entrepreneur based in Kansas City, MO. She has worked extensively in higher education, health care and nonprofits. In 2019, she founded The Transition Academy (TTA) as a solution to the confusing and poorly-designed postsecondary preparation process for students with disabilities — a problem affecting her family and others like hers. TTA is a college and career planning center serving high school students with IEPs and 504 plans, specializing in youth of color. In 2021, she began developing North Star, a college and career planning tech product for these same youth.
About North Star: North Star is web-based college and career navigation platform for high school students with disabilities. The platform includes a comprehensive list of college and career options that specialize in supporting youth with disabilities. What differentiates North Star is the customized search function which allows users to research employment and higher ed options according to their disability needs. For example, a mom can search for job training programs with trained staff to support youth with behavior issues.
Twitter | Instagram| Facebook | LinkedIn
La’Kisha Hawkins aka Dr. H | Houston, TX
About La’Kisha Hawkins aka Dr. H: Dr. La’Kisha Hawkins is an educator based in the Greater Houston area. She has served as an elementary educator for 17 years with a passion for literacy and early childhood education. Dr. H is dedicated to serving children from underserved communities through the training of their teachers in best practices. She developed and piloted the curriculum Learning Through Play in 2020 as a 4.0 Essentials Fellow. With the continued decline of school readiness in young learners from underserved communities, Dr. H looks forward to founding Bright Pathways Education to help close educational gaps through equitable access and resources.
About Bright Pathways Early Learning Center: Bright Pathways Early Learning Center is a preschool designed to help young learners ages two to five in underserved communities get the head start that they need by equipping them with the foundational skills of literacy, numeracy, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATH (STEM), as well as social-emotional skills through early childhood care and education by providing an authentic curriculum that prepares them for success in elementary school and beyond.
Lana Meyon | New Orleans, LA
About Lana Meyon: Lana Meyon is a Fashion Designer and Educator from New Orleans, LA who lives her passions of art, design and education everyday. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from Southern University at New Orleans. She also has a Master of Arts in Teaching and Special Education from Xavier University of Louisiana. Lana’s curatorial and art administrative projects include work with the McKenna Museums and Exhibit BE, and Studio BE where she created educational programming for her art exhibits which cultivated her passion for teaching. This path led her to classroom teaching for seven years before transitioning her teaching practice to program and curriculum design. She currently works as the Program Manager at The Black School and is the Creative Educator/Founder of All About Love Education Studio where she creates in-school creative programs that connect students to creative careers . Her fashion brand namesake “Meyon ‘’ is limited experience pieces that are crafted in small quantities and with notes of exclusivity that are inspired by classic luxury and the aesthetics of culture.
About The Education Studio: The Education Studio is all about love. We are about the love of literacy, the love of learning and the love of design. We create in-school fashion programs that foster and prepare young people for creative careers and interests. We provide the youth with an opportunity to learn on their own terms by being stakeholders in their critical thinking, literacy and problem solving, while learning the real world skills of fashion design and technology, the creative processs and creative entrepreneurship.
Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Laura Thomas | Washington, D.C.
About Laura Thomas: Laura Thomas is the Founder of Effective to Great Education, an Edtech research startup, developing solutions to help advance school community well-being. Her upbringing within an education-focused, southern Black American family fostered an early interest in developing habits that would enable her to build and maintain academic achievement and strengthen her self-identity. Laura’s focus in performance, intrapersonal and interpersonal development during her formative years cultivated her life-long mission to support black and brown kids from underserved communities as a nontraditional educator. She also has a background in Management Consulting and degrees from Brown University and UNC-Chapel Hill.
About Mindfulness Labs App Beta Partnership: Mindfulness Labs is a live digital curriculum database for schools to simplify the integration of consistent trauma-informed, culturally responsive social emotional education. The curriculum has been co-designed and studied with underserved school communities in Ward 8 of Washington, DC. We are implementing the Mindfulness Labs Beta Partner Program to expand and scale our co-design research within diverse school communities to advance mental health education and social emotional wellness among students, educators, and families.
Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn
Lawrese Brown | East Orange, NJ
About Lawrese Brown: Lawrese Brown is the Founder of C-Track Training, an education company that teaches professionals the communication, management and decision making skills they need to feel confident and respected on the job. Her insights on remote work, communication and management have been featured on Huffington Post, Fast Company and The Muse.
In addition to training thousands of professionals, Lawrese’s career development work has impacted thousands of students. She authored and implemented soft skills curriculum for students in high schools and colleges across New Jersey and New York
About C-Track Career Plan: High school is the highest level of educational attainment in America, therefore high schools must be accountable for preparing students for the workforce. This can happen by integrating career experiences into academic lessons plans for teachers of students in 9–12th grade.
Twitter | Instagram |Facebook | LinkedIn
Lina Ragin | Virginia Beach, VA
About Lina Ragin: Mirlina, preferably known as Lina, is a Bronx born Afro-Latina who graduated from Wesleyan University in 2005. Hailing from a family of teachers, Lina has been an educator her entire life, but can mark her professional beginnings in 2006. Once getting her feet wet, she worked for a variety of high performing charter schools in NY including Bedford Stuyvesant, the South Bronx, the Upper West side and Harlem in roles ranging from teacher to administrator. Rebel Tutoring is her dream to create an extensive village full of support, opportunities and generations to follow with knowledge of their intellectual worth.
About Rebel Tutoring: Rebel Tutoring is a tutoring service that provides rigorous instruction, family engagement, student/family empowerment and overall connectivity for families and students alike come together and support them on the path to finding/strengthening their socio-academic voices. At RT, tutoring is seen as an opportunity to develop a new skill or to take content and create connections in order to enhance life in general.
Liz & Mannie Unaeze | Houston, TX
About Liz Unaeze: Liz Unaeze has 12+ years of experience with DEIB work in educational equity, facilitation, training, development, and crisis management. Liz obtained a B.A. in sociology from LSU with a concentration in psychology, and served on Junior League Baltimore’s board as VP of Communications and DEI Chair. She’s the CEO of Simple Little Publishings LLC, a military spouse, mother of 4, and advocate for those with disabilities and alternative abilities. Liz believes every child should have access to mental and emotional health support inside and outside of the classroom through a community support model of child centered care
About Mannie Unaeze: Mannie Unaeze is an active duty Marine Corps Veteran of 12 years with a bachelor’s degree in Transportation and Logistics Management from American Military University. He has extensive training and development experience in coaching, supply chain management, computer information systems, and asset protection. Mannie is the COO of Simple Little Publishings LLC, a spouse, and father of 4. He has led international logistics abroad within his extensive time in service and stateside security efforts. Mannie has led multi-year community initiatives such as Toys For Tots and the USMC Color Guard and is a certified weapons and safety trainer.
About The Don’t Worry Willy Care Kit: The Don’t Worry Willy (DWW) Care Kit is a triad curriculum model that focuses on mental, emotional, and social skill building while leveraging family and community support. DWW utilizes storytelling, in-person or virtual “circle-time” ambassadors, an interactive show, feedback loops, and journaling to engage and empower K-6 kids to develop ownership of their own self-care while connecting them to community resources and agencies that directly support their needs. The DWW Kit utilizes a base curriculum that is adaptable to fit the budget and needs of the school or community service that utilizes it through “plug and play” functionalities.
Lora Smothers | Athens, GA
About Lora Smothers: Lora is a visionary educator with a decade of leadership experience in educational and faith-based organizations. Her career highlights include buying a school at age 23, giving a TED Talk, hosting a conference uniting progressive educators across the southeast, coaching school starters across the U.S., Canada, Kenya, and New Caledonia, publishing a book chapter on education as a vehicle for Black liberation, and launching the Joy Village School, Athens, Georgia’s only private school centering the joy and thriving of Black youth!
About Joy Village School: The Joy Village School is a K-8th private school in Athens, Georgia centering the joy and thriving of Black youth. Our mission is to create a learning environment of cultural safety and affirmation where Black children can learn and grow joyfully.
Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Lucretia Prince | Tuscaloosa, AL
About Lucretia Prince: Dr. Prince has more than 20 years of experience in education. Within these years, she has served as a classroom teacher, adjunct professor, and principal. Under her leadership, she has turned around low-performing schools and established thriving cultures that yielded student success. In 2022, her school was named a National Turnaround Model School. She is the CEO, and founder of I Dream Big Summer Academy, an academy created to decrease summer learning loss among students. She is known for her expertise in literacy, parent engagement, and support for differentiated instruction through Professional Learning Communities.
About I Dream Big Academy: I Dream Big Academy (IDB) is a nonprofit public Charter School serving grades 6–12 with a student-centered focus that prepares students for life beyond high school. Building relationships with each student through mentoring and advisory allows IDB to develop personal learning plans that account for each student’s academic, social-emotional and physical needs to ensure every student maximizes their fullest potential. IDB relies on flexible and innovative learning environments to help students identify their interests and discover passions through authentic, hands-on learning experiences involving entrepreneurship, tech innovations, and apprenticeship opportunities. Our students prepare for purposeful careers driven by interests and passion.
Marissa Pienaar, M.Ed | Oakland, CA
About Marissa Pienaar, M.Ed: Marissa Pienaar, M.Ed is a 20-year educator with experience teaching from kindergarten to community college in locations ranging from Oakland to Namibia, where she volunteered in Peace Corps and learned firsthand the value of cultural humility and belonging. Empathy and warmth are Marissa’s trademarks, and she is committed to co-creating a future of education where everyone can thrive. She founded Educating Marissa as a generative and supporting place for learning, belonging, and development at the intersections of education, liberation, healing, and design thinking in 2021. She looks forward to being in community within the fellowship.
About Educating Marissa Consulting: Educating Marissa Consulting is committed to the transformation of unjust systems for a future where all can thrive. We provide consulting, coaching, and professional learning experiences that help educators create more equitable and engaging spaces with liberating practices within their classrooms, schools, and districts. Our professional learning experiences design intentional actions and outcomes for reimagining and redesigning systems so they may be liberated from producing oppressive conditions and outcomes.
Meagan Naraine & Tamir Mickens | Atlanta, GA
About Meagan Naraine & Tamir Mickens: Meagan is an experienced Science Educator and Curriculum Developer from Atlanta, GA. She has data showing >10% growth in student achievement on Georgia Milestones. Using her Biology B.S. from Emory, she taught 10th grade biology in Fulton County for 4 years, and currently teaches 8th grade physical science in Atlanta Public Schools. Additionally, she is a NSF-DSPETL Teacher Fellow at Georgia State. Through this, she earned her M.A.T. in Science Education/Broad-Field Science.
Tamir is an experienced Instructional Coach, Science Educator, and Digital Content Creator from Atlanta, GA. He taught 11th grade physics and 8th grade physical science in Clayton County for 6 years, and has been a science Instructional Coach in Fulton County since 2019. Additionally, he has developed impressive talents in creating engaging and inclusive digital science curriculum. He is a proud undergraduate of Morehouse College and received his M.Ed. from Georgia State.
About Culturally Relevant Science (CRSci): CRSci is the online platform for innovative, affordable, and inclusive STEM curriculum. We provide culturally relevant science resources, such as video lessons, virtual labs, and lesson plans, for families and schools to freely access nationwide. We believe ALL students, regardless of how they identify, deserve to see themselves in the curriculum, so that their engagement, academic achievement, and likelihood to pursue STEM careers will increase.
Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Morgan Breon | Metro-Detroit, MI
About Morgan Breon: MORGAN BREON holds Dual Masters in Social Work and Education Policy and Dual Bachelors in Psychology and English from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Morgan’s core passion is fostering creative healing support for Black youth and young adults.
In 2017, Morgan founded heal.be.live., LLC. She is an award-winning playwright, published author of “A Refugee of Me,” 2017 Mitten Lab Fellow, 2017–2018 University Musical Society (UMS) Artist in Residence, 2018 Playwriting Scholarship Recipient with PlayPenn Theatre in Philadelphia, 2018 Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellow, 2021 4.0 Essentials Fellow, 2022 Eastern Michigan University Porter Chair recipient and a 2022 4.0 Tiny Fellow.
About THE W.I.T.C.H. Professional Development Training: THE W.I.T.C.H. (Wound Intervention Through Care and Healing) Professional Development Training is a DEI initiative that uses theatre, facilitated dialogue and action planning to raise awareness among educators/mental health practitioners about the severity and impact of trauma on Black students, especially in urban regions. The training is centered around the one-person stage play of the same name (THE W.I.T.C.H.) that depicts the trauma-infused “everyday life” of Black high school students in low-income and under-resourced communities.
Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Naomi Winston | Baltimore, MD
About Naomi Winston: Naomi Winston is from Thibodaux, Louisiana and a May 2021 History graduate from Xavier University of Louisiana. Naomi started creating coloring books at 19 year old. She is working to create representation for Black and Brown kids through coloring books with the intentions of building an Empire of Creative Representation. Naomi fundamentally believes in her university’s model of creating “a more just and humane society” and has dedicated her life to doing so. She is extremely excited to be in the fellowship and create more opportunities for children of color to be represented in and out of the classroom.
About The Creative Representation Empire (TCRE): The Creative Representation Empire, TCRE, is a line of coloring books and other creative tools used to highlight, educate, and represent various cultures and identities. TCRE directly reflects the children that will color the books through curated photographs of real people to emphasis to children of color that they are not alone in life, their identity struggles, or their dreams. TCRE is a continuously growing catalog of books and tools representing different cultures, lifestyles, and ethnicities. Our coloring books both digitally and physically are available to schools and parents to bring creative representation to the children in their lives.
Twitter | Instagram | Naomi’s LinkedIn | TCRE’s LinkedIn
Naquan Lanier Braswell | Brooklyn, NY
About Naquan Lanier Braswell: Naquan L. Braswell is an African American educator based in Brooklyn NY. He has worked for the NYCDOE for over 13 years in several capacities including being a parent coordinator and a dean of students. Naquan is dedicated to the mental, emotional, and spiritual empowerment of students of color in inner-city schools. In order to address low attendance, He started a video gaming team which was able to increase attendance by 33% school-wide and 74% in students with below-average attendance. Naquan is looking forward to learning, growing, and leading with the creative and talented people of the 4.0 fellowship.
About Urban Theater: The urban theater is a multi-platformed performance program that uses self-expression and technology to produce student-created entertainment. empower students’ social-emotional skills. Urban theater creates an opportunity for students to create and share their stories, lives, and talents with other students around the Country/Global. By providing this platform students can increase their self-awareness, confidence, social-emotional awareness, and technological understanding. This program is intended to provide innercity students with an avenue to use their voice and express themselves.
Nasiyah Isra-Ul | Chesterfield, VA
About Nasiyah Isra-Ul: Nasiyah Isra-Ul is a senior at Liberty University, a homeschool graduate, and a budding homeschool coach. She is also the founder of Canary Academy Online Inc, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization working to provide equitable access to homeschool resources and support. She especially enjoys coaching homeschooling parents and students on how to effectively leverage technology and digital tools to maximize their homeschooling budgets while making learning engaging and personalized. As a young leader, Nasiyah loves mentoring youth, volunteering in local organizations, participating in community leadership opportunities, and staying active in her honor society memberships. When she doesn’t have her nose in a book or isn’t managing a national nonprofit, Nasiyah enjoys spending time with family (sibling, parents, and a dog), tutoring, and furthering her interest in multicultural cooking.
About Canary Academy Online Inc.: Canary Academy Online Inc. is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization working to create equitable and affordable solutions for homeschool families. They seek to empower homeschoolers, especially those from underserved demographics through ed-tech solutions, innovative technology distribution programs, and home education training and awareness. They desire to be the one-stop-shop for all families’ homeschooling needs, leveraging community, connections, and technology to provide families with the resources they need without breaking the bank. Canary Academy Online helps families “homeschool their way,” and is “where learning takes off!”
Natasha L. Ballard | Atlanta, GA
About Natasha L. Ballard: Natasha L. Ballard aspires to provide an equitable, accessible, and scalable solution for alleviating poverty for Black & Brown families through community service, machine learning, and gamification. CoLabUnity will educate multigenerational families by creating an ecosystem powered by community service with the use of FINO Framework, a program management software personalizing educational content based on preferred learning styles. She is excited to be a 4.0 Tiny Fellow to learn more about education and how to utilize product management for family development through non-traditional education.
About CoLabUnity (non-profit), FINO Framework (for-profit tech platform): CoLabUnity will be a network of community centers that provide a hybrid learning ecosystem powered through communal collaboration. Learners will perform community service in exchange for digital currency used to buy products and services, both tangible and intangible. It will serve as the hub for in-person communion providing free childcare, free food, and everything else needed to support our Learners.
FINO Framework will personalize these learning experiences to deliver content based on ranked learning styles for that specific topic and lesson. We’ll provide original content as well as content provided by other organizations with similar programming initiatives.
Nick Okafor, Alani Douglas, Alija Blackwell | Brooklyn, NY (but in September moving to Bay Area, California)
About Nick Okafor: Nick Okafor (he/him), a strategist and design researcher, is a doctoral student at Stanford University, where he researches the consequences of disruption, abolitionist technologies, and business models that incentivize responsible urban innovation. Nick co-founded trubel&co, a culturally-responsive technical education platform that embeds responsibility and justice. There, he created Mapping Justice, where diverse youth learn how to design geospatial tools for social change using GIS. He advocates for a radical rethinking of the tools used to create a more equitable society, and believes that technology paired with inclusive & liberatory design can disrupt the sector for the better.
About Alani Douglas: Alani Douglas is a mission-driven product manager, currently at Included Health. Previously, Alani has worked in healthcare administration at Stanford Healthcare, as a public health intern at the Peninsula Health Care District, and learned how to scale technological solutions with Indeed. Alani holds a B.S. in systems engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, where she explored ways to apply her engineering coursework to problems that mattered. In her spare time, Alani enjoys running in the sunshine and water-coloring postcards for her friends and family. She is looking forward to learning together through the fellowship.
About trubel&co | Mapping Justice: trubel&co is a culturally-responsive technical education platform that embeds responsibility & justice, creating a pipeline of innovators committed to improving their community. By championing underserved youth through curricula that centers identity and place, trubel works to diversity STEM, build critical consciousness, and empower future leaders to drive social change. Our flagship program, Mapping Justice, teaches students how to design geospatial tools for social change. Our instruction on GIS paired with our Race, Power, and Technology curricula is funneled into self-directed capstones on geospatial civic innovation, as they create maps and dashboards to advance equity and tackle community-based problems.
Nick’s LinkedIn | Alani’s LinkedIn
Nicole Beeman-Cadwallader | Indianapolis, IN
About Nicole Beeman-Cadwallader: Nicole lives with bipolar disorder, which is inextricably linked to how she approaches building peer mental health supporter training programs. Her passion for educational equity was ignited at 15, when she became aware of the disparities in access to advanced coursework across racial, socioeconomic, gender, and linguistic lines. Nicole leads the work of OneInFive through drawing connections between youth mental health care and school districts’ existing career education programming. She is certified in both Adult and Youth Mental Health First Aid, and is a member of the Indiana Mental Health Advisory Council. Connect with her via LinkedIn or email.
About OneInFive: OneInFive seeks to empower Indiana youth living with mental illness with pathways towards careers in mental health, becoming peer mental health recovery specialists. In addition, youth are empowered to contribute positively to the well-being of their peers through support. We strive to improve educational and career outcomes for the 20% of youth most impacted by the lack of affordable mental health care, with a particular focus on youth who identify as BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+.
Noah Dougherty & Dan Englender | Washington, D.C.
About Noah Dougherty: Noah Dougherty is the CEO and Co-Founder of Relevant Learner, a culturally relevant curriculum tool. He passionately believes that all students deserve to see a part of themselves in their work. He was a teacher for eight years before working as an instructional coach and school leader. He has written curriculum for public districts, charter organizations, and for-profit companies and most recently worked as an education consultant, partnering with districts across the country. Noah grew up in Syracuse, NY and now lives in Washington, DC.
About Dan Englender: Dan is the Co-Founder and CTO of Relevant Learner, a culturally relevant curriculum tool. Dan began coding in high school, writing well-known software for Texas Instruments graphing calculators. He got a degree in computer science, worked for an educational technology company, and was a PhD candidate at Georgia Tech in computer human interaction before leaving to join Teach For America. Dan is currently the COO and CFO at DC Prep, the third-largest CMO in Washington, DC.
About Relevant Learner: Relevant Learner connects students with locally and culturally relevant content. We source diverse and empowering content from expert community institutions and then make it simple for educators to find, personalize, and share that content with students. Relevant Learner has two tools; a browser for teachers to help them find and customize content for their entire class and an adaptive curriculum tool that personalizes content for every student. Every student deserves to see a part of themselves in their school work. Locally and culturally relevant content is the key to creating truly meaningful learning experiences.
Noah’s LinkedIn | Dan’s LinkedIn
Patrinia Baksmaty | Houston, TX
About Patrinia Baksmaty: Patrinia Baksmaty is a wife, a special needs mom & founder of The Kaleidoscope Collaborative in Houston, Texas.
The Kaleidoscope Collaborative is a disability focused equity design firm that facilitates innovative partnerships between public schools and community based organizations to help raise awareness about disability and neurodiversity in elementary schools, and design inclusive learning experiences that embrace and normalize learner variability.
She looks forward to learning from and contributing to the thought pools of so many amazing designers.
About The Kaleidoscope Collaborative: The Kaleidoscope Collaborative is a multi level organization that creates school, district and state level partnerships aimed at supporting innovation within Houston public elementary school special education programs. One of the many ways it does this work is through cultivating mindsets that shed belief systems about “DISability” and shift into the realm of POSSIBILITY with neurodivergent learners. The Kaleidoscope Collaborative begins that process by helping schools realize the realities that ALREADY exist around us, which many of us enjoy, because of the contributions of “out of the box” thinkers past, present and into the future.
Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Rashin Taheri | McLean, VA
About Rashin Taheri: Rashin Taheri is an EdTech entrepreneur passionate about improving STEM education with the help of technology and AI. She feels that she owes it to the next generation to see beyond their grades and traditional classrooms so they can develop a deep understanding of science. She founded SciQuiry in 2021, a question-based STEM eLearning platform, that will personalize and improve STEM education for middle and high school students in the United States using adaptive learning techniques and cognitive neuroscience research. She looks forward to building partnerships across the fellowship.
About SciQuiry: SciQuiry is a question-based eLearning platform powered by AI, that will personalize and improve STEM education in the United States by focusing on learning engineering and cognitive science research to maximize what students learn. This project aims to improve academic achievement and access to high-quality education, as well as reduce gaps in achievement between high-performing and low-performing learners.
Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Robert Azeem Jackson III | Washington D.C.
About Robert Azeem Jackson III: Underneath it all Rob is an educator obsessed with storytelling, community building, and practical innovation. Education and mentorship have been a passion of Rob’s dating back his time as a youth missionary, and later co-founder of an education non-profit, later honored by Michelle Obama for his efforts supporting youth access to higher education.
Rob later meshed his training and experience in data, community building, and story-building. Rob continues to build tools for schools, serving leaders and youth communities as CEO of Cypher, a data advisory firm. He believe leaders unlock opportunities for community & accountability.
About Cypher Impact Promise or CIP: Cypher emphasizes experiential learning + road-mapping + collective memory through STEAM-learning. Ideally we turn STEAM-learning into connective tissue that:
Creates educator self advocacy & community of practice engagement, deepening the curiosity in data-informed practices.
Builds initiatives off the Action plans and accessible tools, empowering all
to act as leaders, turning cohort-based projects into informative pilots, codifying community values in benchmarks that serve the needs of the learning community.
Informs how youth and educators can drill-down into past data and co-create actions to identify challenges and solutions within their learning community; using storytelling, visual art & maker-works.
Russell Harris Jr. | Detroit, MI
About Russell Harris Jr.: Russell is a life long educator with experience as a high school principal and nonprofit leadership. Russell serves in the Army National Guard and has dedicated his life to improving outcomes for young black and brown men. He is currently in the process of launching an all boys boarding school in Flint, MI. The school will be the first of its kind in the nation and will solely focus on preparing young men for post secondary success.
About Journey Academy for Young Men (JAM): Journey Academy for Young Men (JAM) is a all boys boarding school focused on preparing black and brown young men from urban communities for post secondary success.
JAM invests in young men, helping them understand and realize their full potential, so that they thrive and become comprehensive me in their families and communities.
Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Sade Stigger | Inglewood, CA
About Sade Stigger: Sade Stigger is the founder and CEO of CORE 4 Learning. She has over twelve years of experience working in education, with a background in special education in the mild/moderate (elementary/middle school) setting. Moreover, she has spearheaded and managed several SpEd programs for effective parent and student engagement. Stigger has a knack for educational leadership. After the burnout of public education, Stigger started a tutoring program. Three years later, she added homeschooling services and is a partner leading a mental health initiative. She believed that she could provide a valuable experience for her students in a more intimate setting.
About Rooted: Our goal is to create a safe space for our children and parents/guardians to heal, connect, and uplift one another through a series of conversations and exercises to apply to their day-to-day life. Building up the family and the community around the family has become more essential during this time. Our services intervene to fill learning gaps, decrease students from falling behind by establishing foundational skills in reading, writing, and math. Simultaneously we address social and emotional needs to develop a holistic child capable of exceeding the demands and challenges of everyday life.
Samantha Nieves & Dr. Tierra T. Ellis| Los Angeles, LA
About Samantha Nieves: Samantha Nieves is an organizer and artist based in East Los Angeles. Through leadership and internship opportunities, she has developed skills in facilitation as it pertains to conversations centered around wellness through art practices. She has engaged with institutions such as the Public Library Association along with other organizations that provide resources to underrepresented communities. She is the cofounder of the Psyches of Color, Inc, Penpal POC program.
About Dr. Tierra T. Ellis: Dr. Tierra T. Ellis is a Licensed Clinical and School Psychologist based in Los Angeles, CA. She is the CEO of Ellis Psychological Services, Inc. and co-owner of Authentically Black Services, LLC. Dr. Tierra is also a Community Psychologist; she is the Founder and Executive Director of Psyches of Color, Inc., a progressive nonprofit organization that uses strengths-based and culturally relevant approaches to provide mental health support — to at-promise Black and Latinx youth — to decrease mental health stigma and promote radical healing. Her passion entails creating and integrating culturally relevant approaches such as Hip-Hop culture and psychotherapeutic treatments
About Penpal POC: Penpal POC connects system-impacted Black and Latinx youth in the community with Black and Latinx students in a college psychology program who will serve as penpal peers to address system inequities centered on mental health, education, and transformative justice. The Penpal POC adolescents and young adults are provided culturally relevant workshops coupled with the promotion of radical healing, which addresses current healing stages, to meet them in their individual healing.
Samantha: Twitter
Tierra: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Tierra’s LinkedIn
Sandra Boyd | St Helena Island, SC
About Sandra Boyd: Sandra Boyd has 50 years in early childhood education. Highlights of her career include teaching early childhood professionals, direct classroom experience, and consulting with a multitude of early childhood programs throughout the US. Boyd started the first preschool classroom in Beaufort County, South Carolina. She delivered the keynote at numerous early childhood conferences including one convened by Yale and Head Start. She co-created a literary conference in partnership with the Library of Congress. Boyd has spent her retirement years founding a new non-profit called De Gullah SHIPP which will focus on youth empowerment education. She is a poet and storyteller.
About De Gullah SHIPP Youth Educational Empowerment Ring: De Gullah SHIPP Youth Empowerment Ring is a learning backdrop that superimposes the cultural understanding and appreciation of the Geullah-Geechee roots. The approach is experiential learning and a teaching curriculum that will incorporate science, technology, roots, economics, environment art, and mathematics (STREEM). This leadership model will help children develop sustainable skills and the boldness to positively impact the preservation of not only the Gullah-Geechee culture and traditions but the landscape and waterways surrounding St Helena Island.
Sara Toulson | Boston, MA
About Sara Toulson: Sara Toulson is the Founder of The Mindful Applicant. An educator with 15+ years of experience, she has worked in an all-girls school, an NGO school, and in sports-based youth development. Sara believes in the power of great social-emotional learning to improve student-teacher relationships and school climate.
While building TMA, Sara works as an innovation coach and college counselor to high school students, and as a design consultant to schools, school districts, and community-based organizations.
About The Mindful Applicant (TMA): Through a tech platform and SEL curriculum, The Mindful Applicant guides students to better understand their identities and develop a sense of purpose by creating a portfolio that lets them share their personal stories with their school community. This Purpose Portfolio helps strengthen student-teacher relationships and reduce implicit bias, while it improves students’ experience writing college essays and cover letters, and teachers’ experience writing recommendation letters.
Sebastián Martín | New York City, NY
About Sebastián Martín: Sebastian Martin is a social entrepreneur and educator based in NYC. In 2013 he founded Cambio Coffee, an organic social enterprise coffee company that operated in Shanghai for 5+ years. Sebastian moved to New York City in 2018 to run the Social Innovation Program at Avenues: The World School. He is now the founder of Cambio Labs, a nonprofit venture that delivers Journey as a social entrepreneurship program, gamified innovation learning platform, and business incubator for high schools.
About Journey: An Innovation Learning Platform & Social Entrepreneurship Incubator: Journey is a social entrepreneurship program, gamified innovation learning platform, and business incubator for high schools and workforce development initiatives.
While participating in Journey, student entrepreneurs work with teammates to ideate, pitch, prototype, and launch their own organizations driven by social and environmental missions. Throughout the program, students and users engage in entrepreneurial coaching from industry professionals, and are exposed to internship and job opportunities from partner organizations in the fields of tech, sustainability, design, and innovation.
Shannon Hawkins | Tulsa, OK
About Shannon Hawkins: A decade-long educator with expertise in policy and advocacy, family & community engagement, and trauma-informed care, Shannon is the Founder and CEO of Leading A(head) Collaborative, an equity-centered organization whose mission is to co-create healing-centered learning communities to dismantle systemic, intergenerational trauma in schools and homes so that children can grow up whole, fulfill their purpose, and create generational change. She holds a Master of Education Administration in Curriculum & Supervision from the University of Oklahoma and a Master of Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education in Human Development and Psychology, focusing on Child Advocacy.
About Leading A(head) Collaborative: Leading A(head) Collaborative (LAC) utilizes an interdisciplinary two-generational approach to co-create equitable and healing-centered learning environments alongside students, families, and educators. LAC’s programming cultivates stakeholders’ understanding of systemic inequities and toxic stress and, together, work to co-design a culturally and healing-responsive environment. As stakeholders build their trauma-informed and liberated learning practices, they are further positioned to lead, advocate and transform systems. Through healing-centered partnerships and student activism, we envision restored families, equitable communities, and whole kids.
Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Shaundranetta Wood | Washington, D.C.
About Shaundranetta Wood: Shaundranetta Wood is a mathematics educator and advocate based in Washington, D.C. She has served the Washington, D.C. community for 10 years and seeks to increase the love for learning mathematics and bring awareness to how math and STEM are related. Shaundranetta founded Math Speaks in 2021 to expose, engage, and empower middle-school girls in STEM through exploring math topics. Outside of work, she enjoys being a mother of two boys and a wife, a friend, a daughter, and a sister. Shaundranetta is looking forward to meeting like-minded founders and bouncing ideas.
About Math Speaks: Math Speaks is a national non-profit organization that engages, empowers, and exposes middle school students of color from economically disadvantaged communities to STEM experiences and careers through the exploration of math topics. Through our free culturally responsive after-school and professional development programs, we empower the next generation of innovators and leaders to change the world. Our
Shawntia Lee-Emilus | Orlando, FL
About Shawntia Lee-Emilus: Shawntia Lee-Emilus is a vision drive change agent and sociable team player adept at building strong community partnerships, communicating successfully at all organizational levels, and innovating college life and education via a strong focus on technology and student-centric initiatives. Excel at reimagining education with a focus on gamification, equity access, and lifetime learning. Passionate about equity and access to Education for diverse underserved students and creative solutions to disrupt systemic racism within the Higher Education industry. Shawntia is a top performing college recruiter that has grossed over $200 million in revenue and loves outside of the box results.
About College Thriver: College Thriver is an innovative, software solution created to disrupt inequalities within the Higher Education industry for 1st generation, low income students of color. We provide personalized, college roadmaps through a gamification learning approach to help disadvantaged students navigate the daunting and confusing college selection process. With our incentive based, Ed Tech program, students can unlock rewards that help pay college expenses. Additionally, our platform offers Educational Consulting services to universities which will help streamline their processes and onboarding for the students we serve. Our users will have direct access to mentorship, educational guidance and financial incentives all at the click of a button!
Sheila | Annandale, VA
About Sheila: Sheila is the Chief Digital Creator of Simplify Learning LLC. She used to manage corporate newsletters for multinational companies in the Philippines when she found out that her son has autism. Sheila, then, transformed herself into a special education teacher to help her son and later taught other students with special needs in Washington DC. While in the classroom, Sheila felt the overwhelming needs of students, parents and teachers. In order to reach more people, she is now creating products and services that simplify teaching and learning and selling them through popular online marketplaces.
About YOUToolBx: YOUToolBx simplifies teaching and learning by putting teacher expertise and experiences on the forefront. It uses a highly visual course-journal to uncover the strengths and relevant experiences of individual teachers. Thus, it is called, YOUToolBx. It has guideposts, not rigid steps, that help them stay on their path, not force them to stifle their voices. By the end of the course-journal, they would have identified and built their own set of tools that will help them survive and thrive during the New Normal and beyond.
Sherell D. Wilson, Ph.D. | Tampa Bay Area, FL
About Sherell D. Wilson, Ph.D.: Sherell D. Wilson, Ph.D. brings a wealth of skills and accomplishments spanning over two decades as an educational administrator and consultant with three degrees in education, including a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration. Her professional background includes senior leadership for K12 and higher education systems and nonprofits. Dr. Wilson is the CEO and founder of Beyond College Access® national educational leadership consultancy specializing in professional and leadership development programs, resources, and support services. She is also a professor at National Louis University, where she contributes content expertise in the overall coordination, design, development, and implementation of the educational leadership program and teaches master’s and doctoral-level courses. Dr. Wilson is the author of several scholarly articles and a book dedicated to improving educational opportunities and outcomes for all students.
About BEYOND COLLEGE ACCESS professional and leadership development programs, resources, and support services: Beyond College Access® is a national educational leadership consultancy working with education leaders, systems (K12 and higher ed), and nonprofits to improve student access, equitable support, and achievement. We specialize in professional and leadership development programs and resources, as well as educational support services tailored to client needs.
Sophie Haruna Klimcak & Shasha Du | San Francisco, CA
About Sophie Haruna Klimcaku: Sophie Haruna Klimcak (she/her) is a learning experience designer, community-builder, and Bay Area naturalist. As Co-founder and Program Director at Wild Awake, Sophie draws upon her ecstatic wonder for the outdoors and her Japanese & Eastern European roots to design experiences that nurture a deep care for people and the planet. She holds a M.Ed. from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology from Washington University in St. Louis. Sophie is an avid stargazer and backpacker with 300+ miles of trails logged, with a newly emerging passion for birding, poetry, and taiko drumming.
About Shasha Du: Shasha Du (she/her) is a designer, painter, photographer, & storyteller who believes that creativity is a form of reverence for a world greater than ourselves. As a toddler, Shasha immigrated with her parents from Sichuan, China to the San Francisco Bay Area, which didn’t quite feel like home until a high school road trip, when she found an inexplicable sense of belonging while gazing up at the Milky Way for the first time. As a Co-Founder and Creative Director of Wild Awake, Shasha tells stories that dissolve the boundaries between us and the earth. Shasha holds a M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she explored the role of awe & wonder in learning, and design as a force for social change.
About Wild Awake: Wild Awake curates immersive outdoor learning experiences that bring us closer to the earth, each other, and ourselves. We believe that multisensory experiences in nature — watching the belly of a full moon rise in a canyon, breathing in the woody smell of pines after the rain, listening to the first hoots of owls at dusk — bring us back into our bodies, connect us to our humanness, and deepen our awareness of how interdependent we all are.
Instagram | Sophie’s LinkedIn | Sasha’s LinkedIn
Taylor A. Holloway | New Orleans, LA
About Taylor A. Holloway: Taylor Holloway is a designer, architect, and educator who uses design-driven approaches to promote equity in the built environment. Her work is focused on developing new and radical uses of public space, advancing collective capacities for social impact, and championing the preservation of shared cultural legacies.
Taylor is the inaugural Manager of Programs and Audience Engagement for Prospect New Orleans, an Organizer with Design As Protest, a 2019 ACD Fellow, and an AIA Jason Pettigrew Memorial ARE Scholar. She founded Public Design Agency, an organization that utilizes design-thinking, public art, and architecture to train future generations of designers, builders, & change-makers.
About Public Design Agency: Public Design Agency (PDA) is an award-winning design studio and social impact consulting firm. We strive to foster cross-cultural exchange, civic stewardship, and the preservation of our shared cultural legacies in every project and partnership we co-create. We unlock the potential of public art, design, place-keeping, community engagement & skill building to elevate creative voice and promote equity in our schools, neighborhoods, and daily lives.
LinkedIn | Facebook | LinkedIn
Tiffany Blassingame | Atlanta, GA
About Tiffany Blassingame: Tiffany Blassingame provides organizing and productivity strategies to help students and families develop a more organized approach to home, work, and school. She is a certified teacher and administrator that holds endorsements in both reading and gifted education. Tiffany is also trained in Positive Psychology Coaching and Brain-Based Coaching. Tiffany’s varied experience as an educator makes it natural for her to specialize in student organization. Her specialties include working with elementary, middle, and high school students as well as parents and educators. She is passionate about equity and justice and speaks frequently on the topic of DEI on various platforms.
About Smart and Scattered: Smart and Scattered provides opportunities for students, caregivers, and educators to practice and build organized and productive habits so that they are more successful at home, work, and school. Our group coaching and learning seminars help students develop concrete strategies to use their strengths for organization, time management, and study skills. Developing these skills is critical for student success as they matriculate throughout their school career.
Tiffany S. Ward | Pittsburgh, PA
About Tiffany S. Ward: Tiffany Ward is an educator, innovator and instructional coach based in Pittsburgh, PA. She developed ideas for The Pittsburgh Village Project in April 2020 to spark creative, community-inspired learning experiences during and beyond the Covid-19 school closures.
As an advocate for justice in education, she believes that strategically blending a program model that is anti-racist, project-based, and rooted in community service will accelerate student learning and empower communities. She dedicates The Pittsburgh Village Project to making relevant, engaging learning accessible to students and families.
She is excited to plant seeds for this project alongside brilliant community members!
About The Pittsburgh Village Project: The Pittsburgh Village Project is an educational cooperative of diverse students, families and educators who operate as culturally responsive consultants in strengthening and personalizing curriculum and instruction. The project will unify and maximize existing resources to eliminate academic opportunity gaps disproportionately affecting black and brown K -12 students in Pittsburgh.
This model blends anti-racism, project-based learning, community service and cultural responsiveness to accelerate learning. Members of the cooperative receive stipends, placing financial resources into the hands of those directly affected by school success outcomes. Project-based learning requires cognitive task analysis and deep content knowledge that increases achievement.
Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Tony Gayles Jr. | Maysville, GA
About Tony Gayles Jr.: Tony is an experienced educator and beginning farmer in Northeast Georgia. He was a teacher in elementary schools in Brooklyn, NY for ten years, where he also helped cultivate school garden programs. Tony believes that collaborative, student-centered learning is the most fun and the most effective. The Littlefoot FarmLab will be a center for environmental education where students and teachers explore food, farming, and community care. Farmer-educators will lead hands-on lessons in the classroom and in the field at Littlefoot Farm in Maysville, GA.
About Littlefoot FarmLab: The Littlefoot FarmLab is an outdoor learning center for students, parents, and educators to connect and experiment with food, farming, and community care. Students visit the farm to interact with plants and animals, parents and teachers come to create hands-on experiences for their students, and local farmers are trained to lead lessons at schools and on farms.
Trey Pratt | New Orleans, LA
About Trey Pratt: Trey Pratt is a conductor, teacher, and administrator based in New Orleans, LA. Committed to creativity, expression, and community, Trey has held positions at Boston Children’s Chorus, Boston University’s Prison Education Program, and United Parish in Brookline. He is currently the Music Teacher at KIPP Central City Primary, and maintains an online voice studio. His non-profit venture, New Voices New Orleans (NVNO), enters its pilot phase in Fall 2022 with support from 4.0 Schools’ Tiny Fellowship. NVNO seeks to engage singers throughout the city in dynamic performances that unlock creativity, embolden self-expression, and empower civic voice.
About New Voices New Orleans (NVNO): New Voices New Orleans (NVNO) is an emerging vocal music education program that engages singers throughout the city in dynamic performances to unlock creativity, embolden self-expression, and empower civic voice. NVNO’s unique approach to vocal music education prioritizes movement and storytelling as creative pathways for singers to develop literacy in music, command in performance, and confidence expressing their musical and civic voices. Through interdisciplinary rehearsals, intentional discussions, and theme-driven performances, singers become members of critical community and culture-bearers for the city of New Orleans.
Weston Uribe | Santa Cruz, CA
About Weston Uribe: Weston Uribe’s education in psychology and passion for improving student wellness led him to become a software product manager. As a passion project, he interviewed many college staff members and was ultimately inspired to start a company that aimed to bring people together and give them tools to improve student wellness. He is excited to continue his professional development as he pushes to have a big social impact.
About Averatist: Averatist is a community wellness platform tailored to improve student wellness.
With the app, staff and student-run organizations can create user and group profiles, and input wellness resources for students to use.
In order to have deeper conversations and give personalized referrals to resources and wellness topic experts, users can use our in-app chat and video conferencing features.
Finally, school leaders can also define and manage school-wide wellness strategies and gain access to a wellness coaching marketplace, along with volunteer mentors that can work with students.
William Bai | New Orleans, LA
About William Bai: William Bai is a rising junior at Tulane University, majoring in cell & molecular biology with minors in philosophy and management. Born and raised in San Jose, CA, he is currently based in New Orleans, LA. William founded RoboRecovery in February 2021, noticing that untapped resources in the FIRST robotics community could help improve K-12 educational equity and extracurricular STEM engagement in New Orleans. He has previously competed in robotics tournaments, taught robotics classes, and now wants to make robotics education accessible to all students. A 2021 Essentials alum, he is excited to continue learning with the 4.0 Schools community.
About RoboRecovery: RoboRecovery seeks to eliminate barriers to educational robotics and address socioeconomic disparities in STEM education. RoboRecovery provides low-cost access to educational robotics for middle and high schools. Our primary program provides free after-school robotics programs to New Orleans schools and after-school organizations. We also loan classroom sets of robotics kits, collect equipment donations from across the US, and recruit local college students in community outreach. We are looking to start in-school robotics activities and teacher professional development workshops in New Orleans.
Yawntreshia Coleman | Birmingham
About Yawntreshia Coleman: Yawntreshia Coleman is an education & justice advocate based in Birmingham, AL. Passionate about making an impact through economics and advocacy, she educates youth about finance and investing. Her goal is to create a new normal where entrepreneurship and wealth building are added into national & state education standards. She graduated from ODU in Norfolk, VA in 2004 with a degree in Business Administration Accounting and has worked as a staff accountant, public policy coordinator, and resource development manager before focusing on being a mompreneur. Coleman is raising 3 beautiful, strong-willed daughters with her husband of 20 years.
About Camp Trep: Camp Trep, is an education collaborative and youth entrepreneurial accelerator that trains youth through four impact areas: Entrepreneurship, Interdisciplinary S.T.E.M. Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Community Innovation. Our mission is to educate high school students in financial literacy to better prepare them for life during and after college or to support their journey into entrepreneurship. We provide low- and moderate-incomes families in Birmingham, AL with a solid basis in financial literacy thus creating more wealthy BIPOC who are investors and serial entrepreneurs through financial literacy and business & wealth building practices.
