2018 Pay It Forward:
Nominees
Individuals are increasingly moving to digital initiatives in order to make a positive impact and reach a large audience. Check out how these students are navigating the digital space in order to ignite change in their communities.
Alejandro Chardon
Starting with the "Master Plan for Bicycles" at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, Alejandro helped develop cycling infrastructure from scratch and paint the first bicycle lane in the history of the University of Puerto Rico. From this organization stemmed BiciCoop – the first bicycle shop established in the University of Puerto Rico. With this start-up, Alejandro and his co-founders created part-time jobs for students and promoted the culture of entrepreneurship on campus.
Andreina Martinez
Andreina volunteers as a High School Educator, with Peer Health Exchange, an organization that wants to provide young kids with the right tools and information to make smart decisions about their health. She previously interned with the New York State Senate where she focused on constituent casework ranging from housing issues to military benefits. After spending last summer in Washington D.C “interning and learning more about the legislative process our nation goes through,” Andreina took on another internship in the New York City Council where she works to help low income communities and immigrants.
Angel Ortega
Angel has been a long-time member of the Sol y Agua Project. The Sol y Agua Project aims to attract middle school students, specifically minorities, from the Rio Grande Region into STEM fields and careers with a focus on water sustainability, biodiversity, and the human-impact on the environment. “I combined my passion for technology and education with my background as a minority, international student, and Computer Science major to teach children in El Paso about computing, computational thinking, and water.” His goal is to help and inspire young students to pursue a higher education, ideally in STEM.
Arnold Moctezuma
Working as a peer mentor at LaGuardia Community College with CREAR Futuros – a City University of New York (CUNY) wide program spearheaded by the Hispanic Federation – Arnold helps support college retention and graduation rates for Latinx students. “I share stories of my experiences to inspire and motivate a higher sense of self and value in others.”
Bianca Alvarez
Bianca is a student at The University of Texas at El Paso, the Vice President of UTEP's chapter of ACMW (Association for Computing Machinery Council on Women in Computing), a National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) AspireIT Program Leader, and "passionate about empowering Hispanic girls through technology and educational programs".
Claudia Saavedra
Claudia is a student at Rutgers University-Newark studying Public Affairs and Administration. As someone coming from poverty, an immigrant, and a first generation high school graduate, she received no guidance when it came to the college process. She did not want anyone to go through the same experience. When Claudia was 17 years old, she founded college access workshops to help low-income and first-generation students through the college process. As a result, every student participant graduated from high school and attended college with scholarships. In an effort to scale her workshops, when she was a freshman in college, she founded FlairNow - an online mentoring website where she mentored over 100 low-income and first-generation students through the college admission process.
Ryan and Dani DaCosta
As a junior in high school, Ryan created the program, AYUDA! Tutoring – a free tutoring service targeting the large population of Latinx/Hispanic immigrants in Suffern. Ryan explains, “Many students move to the United States and struggle to adjust to classes taught mostly in English and they have limited resources to seek out extra help.” Dani currently serves as a facilitator of AYUDA! Tutoring and is responsible for coordinating and recruiting new tutors. She ensures all involved students have someone to assist them with homework, test prep, language practice, or anything else they may want. The group of tutors offer academic support as well as communication skills to English Language Learner classmates.
Diana Balderas
Diana is a freshman at Bakersfield College studying Computer Science. She was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, California. Her love for technology came to be when she participated in CS summer programs throughout high school such as Kode With Klossy, Girls Who Code, and Google CSSI. She is an advocate for Hispanics in STEM and is currently working on her ongoing project called Food Distribution, a mobile application to decrease food waste, poverty, and hunger.
Diana Lee Guzman
Diana Lee Guzman is a recent graduate from New York University with a B.S. in Computer Science. Diana started her non-profit, Coding in Color, with the purpose of providing educational resources to underrepresented students in computing. “Over the past 9 months, I had the pleasure of working alongside two of my amazing high school colleagues, Lirio and Robert, to create a Summer Coding Camp, specifically for our community. We worked alongside our high school administration (Carl Hayden Community High School) where they provided us with a classroom and computers. The course was sponsored by individual members of the community who helped with supplies and providing stipends for students. I taught the course for three weeks where we covered topics such as Web Development, Object Orientated Programming, Robotics, and Artificial Intelligence.”
Edgar Bustos
Edgar Bustos is studying at the University of Southern California triple majoring in Economics, Business Administration, and Political Science with a minor in Law and Public Policy. He has devoted his undergraduate career to supporting the development of Latinx/Hispanic students as the President of QuestBridge at his university. QuestBridge matches high-achieving, low-income students to elite universities with full scholarships. Edgar explains, "QuestBridge made college possible for me. Now, I serve as President of QuestBridge at the University of Southern California, where I partner with a talented executive board to serve college students and the surrounding community. I have prioritized training events that help first-generation/low-income students to become competitive job seekers and graduate school applicants. I am also reaching out to public schools with majority-Latinx students to sponsor events where we can teach students about scholarship opportunities."
Guillermo Camarillo
Guillermo is studying at Stanford University majoring in Management Science and Engineering. Guillermo launched an organization called Chicago Latinx Scholars that works to connect and give resources to Latinx high schoolers, college students, professionals, and nontraditional students in and from Chicago. The organization has taken initiative to set up workshops across the city to help youth and young professionals network and get assistance with scholarships and college applications. They have partnered with various nonprofits like Mind+Hand and Chicago Scholars to help setup workshops. The organization utilizes social media platforms to connect students and has around 4.3k members as of today.
Itzel Tapia
Itzel is attending the University of Texas at Dallas full-time on a full scholarship. She is majoring in Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence with a minor in Cognitive Science. When Itzel returned to school in 2016 she began volunteering at with Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society in the form of scholarship fundraisers, food drives, and mentorship. This is where she found her passion – helping other students. Itzel began mentoring classmates on the abundance of resources available to help them succeed. This led to helping with scholarship applications, class registration, major exploration, university admissions, and even tutoring. Eventually she began reaching out to high school juniors and seniors who desperately needed help navigating their last years of high school, in preparation for college.
Katerina Alvarez
Katerina Alvarez is a Posse Foundation Scholar at Mount Holyoke College studying Statistics and Sociology. Through her work as a Mount Holyoke Community-Based Learning (CBL) STEM Fellow for The Care Center, a transformative education program, Katerina helps support and empower young Latinx mothers to complete their high school equivalency exams and pursue higher education and successful careers in tech.
Lesly Bohuchot
Lesly is a student at the University of Colorado Boulder in the engineering and applied mathematics department. After coming back from a 2018 Python conference (PyCon), Lesly and another friend revived the Houston PyLadies MeetUp group that had been inactive for over two years. This time, however, they wanted it to be more than just a meet up. Lesly wanted to create an avenue for educational opportunities for young girls and women in general to get into STEM. “So I took it upon myself, coordinating with a few other wonderful women to not only bring PyLadies back to Houston, but to turn it into an outreach and volunteer program.”
Luis Gasca
Luis Gasca is a student at Rutgers University – New Brunswick studying Environmental Business and Economics. Throughout high school Luis was involved in Mill Hill P.E.E.R.S – a non-profit youth development program that focused on encouraging responsible strategies throughout Trenton by presenting skits to the community on bullying, dating violence, drug awareness, and much more. Once in college, Luis was elected to serve as President for C.O.S.I.N.E – an organization that advocates academic excellence amongst underrepresented students and engages in community service. C.O.S.I.N.E creates a safe space where individuals can seek resources, connections, and find networking opportunities.
Marcelo López
Marcelo is a senior at Middlebury College studying International and Global Studies with a focus on Latin America and minor in American Studies, with a Critical Race Theory focus. Marcelo established the first Queer and Trans People of Color (QTPOC) affinity group at Middlebury College during his sophomore year. He founded the group after hearing many of his friends express that they felt there were no LGBTQ+ groups/spaces on campus with the majority of members who could relate to their ethnic/cultural backgrounds.
Orlando Gil
Orlando is graduating soon from Baruch College with a concentration in Data Analytics. On campus, Orlando helped over 30 undocumented students share their stories in a university publication. “My mission is to uplift the contributions of immigrants in American society, and positively shape the rhetoric towards undocumented immigrants. It has taught me the value of owning one's story and using it to combat stereotypes.” As an intern at the U.S. House of Representatives, Orlando helped lobby on behalf of undocumented students such as himself and “bring light to the various issues faced by those of us who are currently DACA recipients.”