Wednesday night ConvergeUS launched in DC with the slogan of “Working with Tech” to create social good. Winning with Tech” The kickoff reception for about 200 DC area folks working in technology, innovation, education, government, and social media boasted a who’s who of tech including:
- FCC Chair, Julius Genachowski
- Joseph Was, Jr, Sr VP of External Affairs of Comcast
- Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone
- Andrew McLaughlin, former White House Deputy CTO
- President and CEO of TechNet, Ray Ramsey
- Marta Urquilla, Sr Policy Advisor to the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation
- President and CEO of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, Muhammed Chaudhry
- Leland Devon Melvin, NASA Assoc. Admin for Education (also former NASA astronaut and pro-football player)
The goal of the launch was to gain support from the tech community to generate ideas for combining technologies and human capital for social good by solving social problems such as illiteracy, obesity, and other social problems. The initiative is starting in the US, but there’s certainly the notion of helping people in at-risk populations globally. Let me have them speak for themselves.
TechNet, the bipartisan, political network of CEOs and Senior Executives established ConvergeUS in the spring of 2010. TechNet’s current CEO, Rey Ramsey envisions a non-profit that not only reinforces TechNet’s role as the “Voice of the Innovation Economy”, but also leverages TechNet’s access to human, technology and financial resources of the technology sector.
Update: 3/ 2016
Despite the promise offered by ConvergeUS, very little ever happened with this initiative and little social good resulted. A few programs happened — like with military families and working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on a white paper regarding the common core — but by the end of 2012, the organization’s social media became silent and their webpage is permanently down.
I was unable to find any reference to ConvergeUS after December, 2012. Goodby to a good idea for promoting tech and social good.
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