In September, I got to attend the Hispanic Federation’s Digital Encuentro, their Digital Skilling Symposium: two days packed with nonprofit leaders, technologists, philanthropy directors, and educators, all there for sessions on AI’s impact on civil rights and communities, building nonprofit capacity with AI, and expanding opportunity in tech. Every corner of the digital equity space felt represented.
Many organizations, one shared goal
What stood out wasn’t one big message, it was how many different groups are working toward the same goal, each in their own way. Some are training nonprofit leaders to use AI. Others are focused on policy and funding to close the digital divide. Others are building pathways for immigrant job seekers, closing gender gaps in tech leadership, or looking at what new data centers mean for the neighborhoods around them.
One phrase from the symposium stood out to me: “add in, not fit in.” Melonie Parker, Google’s VP of Employee Engagement, used it during a chat about networking, about showing up as yourself instead of trying to blend in. Looking around the room, that phrase took on a different meaning for me. With so many organizations chasing the same larger goal, it felt less about individual networking and more about collective strategy. Not every organization has to take the same approach. Everyone just has to contribute their own piece.
Some of the best moments happened outside the formal sessions too, in hallway conversations about where people saw technology heading next and how they felt about it, curious more than certain, and eager to be part of building it rather than just watching it unfold.
Why this matters for programs like SYIP
That same idea matters for young people too, and it’s exactly what makes programs like MDCPS’s Summer Youth Internship Program (SYIP) so valuable. SYIP places student interns with organizations across the community, and Miami EdTech is one of the sites that hosts them. This summer, our interns spent their time coding, learning programming fundamentals, and building robotic cars from scratch, real hands-on work, not just watching from the sidelines. They don’t need to fit into someone else’s idea of what a tech career looks like. They need room to add their own part.
A shared way forward
There’s a lot of great work happening in the tech world right now, from national organizations tackling AI and civil rights to programs like Summer Youth Internship Program happening close to home. Different scale, same mission. And if this experience taught me anything, it’s that the future isn’t something that just happens to us. It’s something we all get to help build.
