Fostering a Safer Community 2024

Techtonica publicly re-committed to fostering a safer, more anti-racist community four years ago. We remain committed to this journey and are pleased to share an update with you.

Improvements

The Techtonica team has continued to hold our weekly safety meetings, where we discuss any issues that have come up and any ideas we have for improvements. Some of the actions we’ve taken over the last year as a result of those meetings and feedback given by community members include:

Program

• Placing 11 graduates at Sony
• Choosing to delay the start of a cohort in order to seek more financial stability
• Adapting the program to charge tuition for added program financial stability and offer need-based, sliding-scale, subsidized tuition and stipend scholarships
• Hosting a Q&A about the new scholarships plan
• Re-engaging past applicants
• Pivoting to a 5-month program for 2024-H2 with new integrated AI curriculum
• Incorporating changes for more accessible day-to-day roadmap consumption
• Making accommodations for personal circumstances
• Scheduling additional times for the Founder & CEO to join the cohort’s wrap-ups
• Clarifying Monday.com task copying process
• Simplifying and creating more clear separation between must-dos and optional helpful resources in the participant roadmap
• Researching, planning, and launching Techtonica Consulting to give graduates paid experience with software consulting and to bring in more revenue
• Hosting another two rounds of the Seeker Program with scheduled mock interviews and themed sprints
• Preparing extra laptops that are ready to mail as soon as there’s a need
• Streamlining the long form application, project, and knowledge check rubrics with more specific questions and spreadsheet formulas
• Adjusting the cohort’s schedule and engaging many supportive volunteers to solidify basics
• Creating project-based quizzes
• Updating our mission language to use “seeking economic empowerment” instead of “with low incomes” to focus on empowerment rather than deficiency
• Assessing empathy of communication and writing messaging templates for consistency
• Adjusting the placement rating system for new circumstances and communicating about the new plan
• Gathering feedback about and revising scoring process, timeline, and Seeker Program
• Considering Seeker needs and engagement
• Customizing and beginning a consulting partnership with a well-aligned company

Staff

• Hiring and onboarding new team members with new “working with me” docs
• Expanding role documentation in videos and writing
• Giving more team members access to platforms for better collaboration
• Automating sharing of job opportunities
• Keeping the team updated about runway and discussing options
• Deciding against pursuing a military partnership and a project that was not well-suited to our needs
• Revising our consulting process to get to work more quickly
• Filling in for a team member during a long family emergency
• Thinking outside the box for the role responsible for partnerships
• Extending signature permissions to more team members
• Scheduling board member backup
• Attending a power and privilege workshop and sharing highlights with the team
• Sending items to show appreciation and condolences
• Conducting retrospectives on actions to do better next time
• Encouraging self-care with a new check-in question and creating our own weekly wellness quiz based on available research
• Correcting and mediating correction of administrative mistakes

Community

• Signing on with a new service for scheduling ASL interpreters as needed and documented the Zoom process for assigning an interpreter
• Partnering with LIVE near WWDC to engage attendees of WWDC
• Adjusting Slack permissions
• Welcoming a new board member
• Sharing resources that could be helpful for community members
• Brainstorming other fundraising opportunities
• Working with hiring partner to ensure terms and support plans set graduates up for success
• Reviving monthly mentor meetings and adopted check-in guidelines and weekly updates
• Engaging board members and other community experts in planning
• Putting together case studies and personal stories for potential partners
• Updating the anonymous feedback form to utilize our feedback formula

Impact

While we did not host a cohort during the first half of 2024, the 2023 H2 “overall experience” ratings exceeded our 3.5 expectation at an average of 3.66. We have now had 110 participants graduate from our program.

One fun impact we saw is that two long-term Techtonica supporters who met while volunteering at one of our workshops married within a block of the workshop location, and they kindly offered guests the option of donating to Techtonica in lieu of gifts.

For a shorter, more visual overview of what we did in 2023, here is our 2023 impact report.

Quotations

“This has been a really transformative year for me. I’m so proud of myself for taking a leap of faith, leaning in to the challenges, and believing in myself. This has been a dream of mine for many years, to call myself a software engineer and today I can say it with pride. Thank you to my cohort mates for inspiring me every day!! For helping me see myself in this new way and for bringing compassion and perseverance day after day. You’re all brilliant and wonderful humans. Thank you to Techtonica mentors and staff for making this possible! Thank you for reminding us how far we’ve come and to celebrate ourselves regularly.” —Destinee, Program Participant

“I’m excited to be here. I relaunched some projects and started updating old libraries. Resources are affirming as well as confidence-boosting. It’s helpful to have resources to link back to and see what I declared, what I accomplished, and where I could use attention.” —Meia, Seeker

“I love how organized everything is. From small things like adding bookmarks to our convo so I can easily access resources, to all the categorized folders w/ code challenge solutions. I think code challenges are the most challenging part for folks during the interview process, so having a daily code challenge + regular mock interviews is AWESOME! I also appreciated the kind words of encouragement from staff, as looking for work in the market is awful and it is easy to be discouraged.” —Karolina, Seeker

“I could tell from the very start in the weekly pre-application study groups how much the staff actually cares about and supports its students, and that care and support continues throughout the duration of the program. I never felt stupid or like I wasn’t good enough; they encouraged a growth mindset, so failure just became a part of the process. I was amazed that this program could be free: when I compare experiences with people from other bootcamps, I always seem to have the best experience of everyone! They also foster an environment of support and sharing resources; my cohort mates and I never felt in competition against each other, we were always each others’ best cheerleaders.” — Rachel, Program Participant

Current status

The 2024 H2 cohort is underway with 14 participants. Please watch their launch celebration here.

We are reaching out to our connections to secure new partnerships that will allow us to continue serving our community and would greatly appreciate any support with introductions and donations.

We haven’t given up on our growth mindset! We plan to continue making improvements so make this a wonderfully-welcoming community.