Support Cambridge Volunteers

Once a week during the past school year, Flavio left his desk at Microsoft a bit early and caught the subway to iFp’s workroom at the Cambridge Public Library. Why? He says: “I wanted to give back. The feeling I get from doing this more than justifies the commitment.” He and a Google volunteer were matched with 3 students, tasking them to develop an inspirational “Genius Website” for their peers from scratch. With no coding background, his students had to grasp high level website structure, and then learn their way around several programming languages. Flavio credits their success to iFp’s teaching methods, especially their close student-mentor ratios. He speaks from experience; his own life had been radically transformed by a tech-focused mentoring program. He underscores, “Tech insiders who build meaningful relationships with youth from underrepresented demographics are the key. Programs like iFp could change many more lives if we just had more volunteers.”