Award recognizes leaders of Kansas City and Chicago organizations that assist inner-city youth, veterans, and others interested in technology careers
BraveIT organizers today announced the winners of the conference’s first annual award, recognizing individuals who have demonstrated strong leadership in making innovative contributions of IT knowledge and/or resources to help advance a worthy cause.
From the many nominations received for this year’s award, four finalists were chosen, and online voting for those finalists took place in August. Two of the finalists received comparable levels of significant support, compelling the conference organizers to issue two awards this year.
First-place winner Joe Wilkinson received a trophy and $10,000 donation to the non-profit organization he leads, Code the Block, which teaches coding to inner-city high school students in the Kansas City area. Started as an after-school program, Code the Block has expanded its services to include several summer camps and multiple courses: introduction to software engineering, web development, and app development.
Second-place winner Bridget Altenburg, CEO of Chicago-based National Able Network, received a trophy and $5,000 donation to her organization, which provides technology training for U.S. military veterans and others seeking entry to the workforce. Altenburg’s leadership and vision have resulted in the growing prominence of the Network’s IT Career Lab, which includes an in-house team of experts and coaches assisting Chicago-area professionals.
