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Wealthsimple Foundation is a Canadian charity working to enable a brighter future for everyone in Canada through access to post-secondary education. The Foundation is supported by Wealthsimple, which builds a variety of digital financial tools trusted by over 2.5 million Canadians. In this talk we'll go over: - How an organization supporting for-profit and non-profit activities is structured (and the ethical considerations that can arise from that) - Responsibilities of engineers working in a non-profit space - Opportunities and challenges of digital products addressing systematic inequalities
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In this engaging presentation at RubyConf 2022, Tyler Ackerman, a software engineer at Wealthsimple Foundation, shares insights on building an education savings platform and ways to give back to the tech community. He begins by introducing his background in community service, influenced by his family's strong emphasis on giving back, and his journey from studying business to working in tech with a focus on making a social impact. Key points from Tyler's talk include: - **Accessibility Advocacy:** Tyler emphasizes the importance of making applications usable for everyone, including people with disabilities and those with limited technology access. He notes that while achieving 100% accessibility is unrealistic, even small improvements make a significant difference. - **Hosting Workshops:** He discusses the benefits of workshops for teaching new topics and creating safe learning environments, highlighting how they can be low commitment but high impact. - **Mentoring and Coding for Non-profits:** Tyler shares personal experiences in mentorship, emphasizing the rewarding nature of helping others grow in their careers while also underlining the varied time commitments involved in volunteering with non-profit organizations. - **Teaching:** Teaching, whether formally or informally, can have a significant impact on future generations, although it requires a learning curve and the development of soft skills. - **Civic Hacking:** This involves using public data to solve community issues, creating tangible benefits through engineering skills. - **Open Source Software Contributions:** Contributing to open-source projects can be daunting yet impactful, providing solutions to societal problems at little financial cost. - **Working in Non-Profit Sector:** Tyler discusses his role at Wealthsimple Foundation, which aims to democratize access to financial tools. He describes their initiatives like bursaries and education savings programs, which help students and low-income individuals improve their financial literacy and access resources. Throughout his speech, Tyler provides anecdotes of his experiences, including the challenges and rewards of working in a non-profit and collaborations with community members. He emphasizes the foundation's symbiotic relationship with Wealthsimple, which, despite challenges, has allowed them to help thousands of individuals access educational funding. Tyler concludes with an encouraging message for the audience to start small in giving back and to leverage their technical skills for community improvement. He suggests actionable steps like educating oneself about accessibility or volunteering, aiming to inspire engineers to make a positive impact in their communities.
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