Teach For America Builds on Its BDPA Success

Teach For America (TFA) agreed to staff a BDPA career fair booth for the second year in a row. TFA believes that one day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding top college graduates, graduate students, and professionals who commit two years to teach in low-income urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in expanding educational opportunity for all. Their mission is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nation's most promising future leaders in the effort.

BDPA is proud to know that one of our High School Computer Competition (HSCC) alums, Okwudili Udeh, accepted a job offer with TFA shortly after visiting them at last year's career fair in Washington DC. Okwudili, who used his Bemley scholarship towards his education at Ithaca College, is coming onto his first-year anniversary as a QA analyst with Teach For America.

TFA evolved its relationship over the past year at the local level as well. The group provides STEM-based training for young high school students in the Student Information Technology Education & Scholarship (SITES) program implemented by our BDPA New York chapter. Members of the TFA team have been instrumental in preparing these young people from New York to perform at the national BDPA HSCC taking place next month in Indianapolis.

TFA leveraged its relationship with BDPA to achieve a powerful return-on-investment. The value proposition for them worked so well in 2013 ... that they are eager to return to the annual BDPA Technology Conference being held on August 5-9, 2014 in Indianapolis.