This Equalithon
On June 17, Essteem’s #WeBelong community is launching the Pride Equalithon to support the LGBTQ+ community at a time when the community is facing renewed bias and harassment.
Join us and make a strong move to support the LGBTQ+ community. If you want to fight for the freedom of being yourself, it’s the right time. And it’s urgent. Discover more about the challenges below.
Together, let’s fight for causes with more than just good intentions!
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Equalithons are Hakcathons for Equality.
Introduction about all the aspects of what’s involved
Discussion about the potential challenges and their potential impact
A decision about what challenge to offer in the Equalithon based on (vote for the best challenge pitch)
During a day to a week (choose your track) you will hack to find solutions for one or more nonprofit(s) having a tech challenge.
Your solutions will enable the nonprofit(s) to scale better, and faster with their audience and their impact.
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Nonprofits and Communities
SMB’s & ESG leads
Organizers (Essteem, TSP)
Educational Partners
Avocademy
Bottega University
Flatiron School
FullStack Academy / Grace Hopper
General Assembly
Girl Develop It
NYU
nPower
Opentree Education
Per Scholas
Sponsor (Adobe, PTC, Reddit, Wells Fargo, Nasdaq, Techstars)
The Tech Academy
Directly invited by Essteem
Other
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1 . Challenge for Stanford Pride & Other Alumni Orgs:
Main idea: Stanford Pride has a membership database maintenance challenge.
Context: This is a common problem at other alumni organizations and nonprofits in general, so any open source work in this area could really be impactful. Claude at Stanford Pride shares:
Quote: "In our Salesforce database, the information we have about locations, current activity, and e-mail addresses for members may be outdated. In practice, the information is different in our Salesforce database, our LinkedIn group, our Facebook group, and our group in the Stanford Alumni Association database. Finding discrepancies by (semi-)automating the reconciliation, flagging them in a dashboard, and sending messages on social media to people whose e-mail addresses have bounced or whose information is outdated would be very useful…"
The dream: a Salesforce-based application that tells each of our members what information we have about them, and then asks them to update anything that's outdated, preferably with those updates going directly into the database (rather than being sent to one of our board members to make those changes).
Scope in practice: whatever you can help us with so that we automate this updating process will be useful.
2. Challenge for Safeplace International
Main Idea: Safe Place International has a platform creation challenge.
Context: Our community of LGBTQIA+ refugees and asylees is rapidly growing. Due to the volatility of their conditions and alienation for their identity, we need a platform or portal that safely permits our community members to connect with one another, to share triumphs, to pursue further professional development, to broadcast their journeys, and to report instances of violence/discrimination.
Our dream for a solution: “Being a displaced LGBTQIA+ person is incredibly alienating. This population is targeted for their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, while also being marginalized for their migrant status. Safe Place International provides both fundamental resources and growth opportunities. We want to provide program participants and graduates with a safe platform to connect with one another, pursue their passions, and share their stories. We are a small nonprofit, filling a gap that no one else is. We’re stretched thin as is. We need brilliant tech minds to help us create something that will be a one-stop-shop for one of the world’s most marginalized (yet resilient) populations.”
Scope in practice: we welcome you to help in any way that you can. We’re open to adding features in consultation with our assistants and community members.
This Equalithon is an opportunity to:
address a critical Societal challenge;
improve and scale our impact, together!
All times are given in US EST (NYC time)
Location: entirely remote
To Go Beyond this Equalithon
Recurring Allies
Keynote speaker
Claude Baudoin, Stanford Pride.
Past nonprofits partners supported:
Adelante Student Voices (LatinX)
Beyond the Talk (BIPOC)
Blacks in tech (BIPOC)
Blended Communities (Accessibility)
Code for America (COVID 19)
Girl Develop It (Women)
Episo Foundation (Women, Incarcerated)
Felt Education (Refugees Inclusion)
French American Chamber (Foreigners)
Institute for Career Transitions (Ageism)
Listen First (Rural Gap, Bipartisanism)
NaamHouse (Veterans, Accessibility)
Open Police Complaints (BIPOC, Police Violence)
ParentPreneurs Black Founders (BIPOC) Parity Productions (Women, LGBTQ, Artists)
Premiere Urgence International (COVID 19)
Protest Away (BIPOC, All communities)
Startout (LGBTQIA+)
Stanford Pride (LGBTQIA+)
Safe Place International (LGBTQIA+)
Sanitation Foundation, NYC DoS (Environment)
TechQueria (LatinX)
The King Center MLK (BIPOC)
The Serenity Project (Women, Mental Health)
US Department of Veterans Affairs (Veterans)
WCAPS (Women, Mental Health)
Women Who Code (Women)
In-Kind Sponsors
Airtable for their support to BIPOC-led companies (of which ourselves)
Bubble for no code discount and instructors during EqualiCamps
Chatterworks for enabling access to tons of Tech talent
Hypedocs to join an Essteem-pod: peers who support each other, weekly
Slidebean to create great presentations for teams
Sojo Signal for free personalized coaching from our Slack
Twilio and Sendgrid for text and email contact opportunities
Tracks
You can choose among the two
Tech Track. Work at your rhythm, with teams of developers, designers,
No-Code Track. For those who want to learn no-code tools or help through marketing etc. Note: if you are a designer, project manager or data scientist and you want to work with others as a team, please prioritize the Tech Track!