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ready for takeoff
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hello everyone my name is Tyler I'm a
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software engineer with wall simple
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Foundation we're based at Toronto
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Ontario Canada and today I'm going to
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talk to you about a few different ways
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you can give back in the Tech Community
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so I'll start out first by giving a
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little bit of a background about myself
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I come from a family where there's
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always been a very strong emphasis on
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giving back to the community
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uh so most notably when I was young we
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started this Foundation that was meant
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to bridge the gap between post-secondary
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education and University for uh for a
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bunch of at-risk universe at-risk
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students in like high school in the GTA
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area great Toronto area in Toronto and I
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continue to volunteer when I got to
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University as well and and expanded that
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to the Toronto Community too and I
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actually learned business in University
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but when I changed into the tech
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industry I want to know how I can
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leverage those skills as a software
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engineer to make a bigger impact in the
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community at large so I compiled this
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list of different ways that some of them
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I've tried to give back using and then
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some of them are definitely aspired to
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do but this is by no means an exhaustive
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list this is just a good uh good way to
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give you like a starting uh a place to
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start to like give back in the community
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when you get back home
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so I bring everything down by what I
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like to call the spectrum of giving back
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um and when I think about volunteering
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uh the number one thing for me is I want
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to make sure that uh it's uh in a time
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commitment that I think is manageable I
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don't want to overwhelm myself and I'm
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very cognizant that uh that burnout is
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real when volunteering as well so I
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break everything down by time commitment
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with things that require a little bit
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less time commitment closer to the left
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side and then things that require a
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little bit more uh close to the right
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and do the end of the presentation on me
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talking to you about a very interesting
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situation I found myself in where I'm
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actually volunteering full time as part
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of a non-profit organization
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so let's get started uh first and
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foremost let's talk about being an
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accessibility Advocate uh so what
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exactly is accessibility uh for those
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who don't know it's just making an
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application usable by as many people as
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possible and when a lot of people think
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about accessibility uh their mind
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naturally goes to people with
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disabilities but it doesn't always
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include them it can go on to include uh
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people with technology uh restrictions
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as well maybe very low internet
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connectivity or people that are uh that
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only have access to a mobile device or a
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desktop computer so it's making sure
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you're capturing all those people as
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well in with your accessibility and your
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websites and the cool thing about this
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is once you learn these accessibility
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design patterns it's really a passive
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time commitment and can go on to save
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you time as well I've noticed in some of
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my projects a lot of things that are the
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least accessible also happen to be the
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things that are the most complex and
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oftentimes a simple solution is the more
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accessible solution as well
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so when thinking about the impact of uh
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of being an accessibility Advocate
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you're making the internet more usable
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for an entirely new segment of uh of
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people and uh it's important to note
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that 100 accessible is not really an
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attainable goal that you should strive
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for
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um it's a really sad fact that 97 of
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websites with 97 of the top 1 billion
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websites aren't fully accessible so
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anything you do even if you're just
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making sure that any application you're
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working on has uh has a mobile component
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to it as well you're making a good first
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step to making sure that more people can
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use your your application
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so next I like to talk about hosting a
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workshop and I love workshops I love
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going to workshops and also hosting them
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because it's a great way to learn a new
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topic that typically uh
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um would be taught in a classroom
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setting and the cool thing about hosting
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a workshop as well is you don't
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necessarily need any experience hosting
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a workshop or your experience can
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specifically lie in that specific area
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that you're hosting the workshop in
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so for example when I first got into the
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tech industry after I got my first job I
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went back to my programming school and
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started teaching people about how you
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can Ace and interview in the tech
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industry because I found a lot of times
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that I was going to interviews I was I
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was doing it in the same way that you
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typically do like a business interview
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and I learned the hard way that it's
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actually quite different
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so the time commitment involved with
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hosting a workshop is relatively low
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it depends on how many workshops you've
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spent intend on hosting but typically
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there's a little bit of a ramp up period
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your first Workshop you're hosting you
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definitely have the nerves and it's a
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lot of it's a lot of commitment to get
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it up to a place where you're
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comfortable with but after that it's a
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lot of maintenance on it it's a lot of
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tweaking small things so the time
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commitment definitely timers off after
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that
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but the impact of hosting a workshop is
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massive uh you are essentially creating
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content that isn't typically found
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anywhere else especially not in one
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cohesive Manner
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and you give people the opportunity to
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you know come into a safe environment
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where they can ask questions they can
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try things they can fail different
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things and then they can go home and
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also try those things as well
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and next up I'd like to talk about
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volunteering which I like to put in two
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separate categories uh the first of
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which is mentoring which I'm sure a lot
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of us here have been mentored by a more
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senior developer or writing code for
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non-profits and the reason I separate
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these are because they do vary
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significantly in time commitments
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um as a mentor
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um and a mentee I found that typically
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I'm meeting with I'm meeting maybe once
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or twice a month that could be anywhere
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from 30 minutes to an hour each session
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but I'm typically leveraging my skills
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my experience that I developed on the
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job to help guide another engineer along
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their path towards where they want to be
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in their career but writing code for
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non-profits I've also had the
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opportunity to do this as well and it's
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uh it really varies in the amount of the
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scope of work that you can do it can
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range from you know you just doing some
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basic Website Maintenance type things to
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you being the entire development team
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and charge of project management and
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developing the application so it can
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vary from anything from a couple hours a
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month to something that could go on to
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be something that you do outside of your
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nine to five consistently on a daily
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basis
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so the what I like to think about for
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the impact is as a mentor
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it's awesome to you know like be able to
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gain some leadership skills and help a
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young engineer develop on their pathway
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on their path towards where they want to
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be in their career as a mentee it's been
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an awesome experience being mentored
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because I have a safe environment where
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I can ask some questions that are
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typically found online for example like
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some uh like if I want to figure out
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salary negotiation stuff which varies by
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the city you're in which varies by
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what level of the career which varies by
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the company you're you're participating
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in
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um but also you're able to expand your
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network as well
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um it's awesome to be in the industry
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and know that you have someone else you
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can trust that's also in the same
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position as you as well and writing code
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for non-profits it's a really cool
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opportunity mainly because if you're not
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writing code for nonprofit typically
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they're either not going to do it
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themselves or they're going to find
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someone else to do it which might
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involve using some valuable resources
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which they can better spend helping
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people in the community
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so it's it's really good to help out
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non-profits you're essentially expanding
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their online reach for a very low price
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on their end
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and next I could talk about teaching
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which I've had the opportunity to do as
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well fairly early on in my career and
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had a very very uh interesting situation
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teaching
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but it's essentially instructing in a
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more formal manner than a workshop and
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you're typically relying on some content
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that is either created by yourself or
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you're following a curriculum that
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someone else has given you as well and
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when I think about teaching I also
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separate this into two unique distinct
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paths you can either teach in a more
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formal setting like a classroom or you
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can teach in like a less formal setting
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like on an online learning platform or
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through YouTube
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and the curriculum can range depending
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on what you want to teach for example
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you can teach the Cs CS fundamentals or
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you can teach the the specifics of a
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programming language so it's really up
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to you what you want to teach with this
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uh with your curriculum but beyond that
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there's a the time commitment's
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relatively more on the higher side
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similar to that of a workshop you have a
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significant time commitment for your
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first semester but you do have the
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option to teach full-time or part-time
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so I recommend for your first Workshop
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definitely your first teaching
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engagement I recommend uh leading more
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towards that part-time commitment
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and something else to notice to note as
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well is that there's that implicit time
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commitment that no one really talks
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about with teaching which is uh you need
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to have enough experience to to be able
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to teach whatever you're being whatever
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you are teaching in the course so a good
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example of this is like if you want to
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teach in like a public sector you
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definitely need to have a teacher's
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license in a lot of States but if you
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want to teach in the private sector it's
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typically just experience on the job
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experience that helps you
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teach any sort of topic
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but the impact is Awesome with uh
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teaching as well you're connecting with
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a new generation of people that are
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learning a programming language
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um and also you're uh you're teaching
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digital literacy in an increasingly
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technology technologically Reliant uh
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Society
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um but I will note when I was uh when I
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was teaching I kind of started a little
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bit too early in my career and there's a
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very steep learning curve that I didn't
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notice
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um I noticed that uh like I thought I
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could leverage just my like raw
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programming ability to be able to teach
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but there's a lot of other skills that
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people don't talk about like having to
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show empathy or like learn listening
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skills or communication skills which are
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all very important so I eventually learn
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these skills and was able to be
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successful as a teacher but there's
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definitely a very steep learning curve
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which I would definitely consider if you
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want to get more into teaching
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and next I'll talk about Civic hacking
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um so I'll go a little bit higher level
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with this uh because Civic hacking is
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essentially using publicly available uh
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information or maybe data provided by
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the government to help make your
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community a little bit better
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um it doesn't necessarily need to be
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anything online but as an engineer you
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have this unique skill set where you
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have this Keen attention to detail
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you're problem solving for your every
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day-to-day job but also you're very
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comfortable working online so what that
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means is you can go out in the community
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you can see things that typically don't
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work as well as you want it to you can
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you can devise and scope out a solution
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to some of these problems and you're
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able to create something that can fix
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something that you see as wrong from the
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comfort of your own bedroom
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and the time commitment for this again
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starts out relatively on the easy side
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relatively easy to manage but depending
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on how the scope increases for for your
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Civic hacking engagement you can see
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that you might have to go more on the
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maintenance side or you might have to
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start thinking about whether you want to
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provide more features in your product
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that will start to eat away at some of
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your time that you didn't account for
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but the benefits of doing a Civic hack
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are really quite significant you're
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helping breaking down some of the
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barriers in the community you're
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providing people with better access to
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information and you're helping free up
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some of the government resources as well
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so it can be better spent in other areas
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in the community it's important to note
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though that like like I mentioned with
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the Civic hack you run the risk of maybe
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having to expand the reach a little bit
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and you might start losing control of
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your application I personally haven't
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participated in a Civic hack but I've
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used quite a bit of Civic hacks in
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Toronto I know one major one we have is
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the government released a bunch of data
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pertaining to when buses would arrive
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and a lot of people created applications
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where you can track real time where
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buses are going and it's actually way
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better than the application that uh our
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public transit released
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so next I could talk about uh writing
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open source software and this is by no
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means anywhere that I am comfortable uh
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writing code for but it's essentially
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software that's distributed with its uh
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source code
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um and it's done in a way that uh they
00:14:04.800
want people to iterate on it to modify
00:14:07.860
different things and essentially learn
00:14:09.540
from it and make it a little bit better
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and some obvious examples of Open Source
00:14:13.440
software are Ruby which I'm sure a few
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of you have used uh rails uh uh react
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Firefox and Linux are some really cool
00:14:24.300
examples
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and I would say the time commitment for
00:14:29.040
writing open source software is
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very significant
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um
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not only in terms of just writing the
00:14:35.760
code but you're also having to deal with
00:14:38.040
a lot of the bureaucratic
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um uh licensing process you have to deal
00:14:44.339
with making sure your application's
00:14:46.199
pivot in a way that you're comfortable
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with
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um so it's not necessarily uh all coding
00:14:51.540
it's also a lot of that management side
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as well so if you're thinking about
00:14:55.380
doing writing some open source software
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and you're just looking to get started
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definitely look to iterate on existing
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open source software to tape your toes
00:15:03.959
in a little bit
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um but the impact really is amazing I
00:15:08.040
think we all appreciate people that
00:15:09.480
write open source offer so if you do
00:15:10.980
please continue writing it
00:15:13.260
um because it would cost us a lot of
00:15:15.060
money to be able to use some of the
00:15:16.380
software that's just free and publicly
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available
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um and it helps solve some problems uh
00:15:22.199
that our society has or that our
00:15:24.300
application has
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um in a way that like is contributing to
00:15:29.360
the distributed development process
00:15:32.040
which I love that like you can create an
00:15:34.380
application and people can iterate on it
00:15:36.540
and then it can solve a problem that you
00:15:37.920
didn't originally uh intend for it to
00:15:40.079
solve but with that you're if you write
00:15:43.019
open source software it's uh it might be
00:15:45.120
a little bit daunting to lose law of
00:15:46.440
that control and you might run the risk
00:15:49.019
of like being in a long legal battle if
00:15:50.880
someone were to take that software and
00:15:52.440
try to use in the way that you didn't
00:15:54.240
intend like to sell but that's like way
00:15:57.480
down the line I think the benefits of
00:15:59.279
writing open source software well more
00:16:01.620
than that way the considerations here
00:16:04.440
so the last thing I'm going to talk
00:16:06.420
about is working full time for a
00:16:08.940
non-profit organization which I do
00:16:11.579
acknowledge is more uh it's more unique
00:16:14.579
to my experience but I think it's kind
00:16:16.560
of cool to share uh how I've kind of
00:16:18.839
ended up in this situation
00:16:22.079
so I'll go on to explain uh what well
00:16:24.360
simple is while simple is essentially a
00:16:27.600
fintech based on a Toronto Canada we
00:16:30.180
have about 2.4 million clients across
00:16:33.240
the country and our main goal is to
00:16:37.320
provide Financial Freedom to all and
00:16:39.360
that's independent of age education
00:16:42.720
background
00:16:44.660
net worth
00:16:47.060
and the way we do this is by offering a
00:16:50.339
series of financial instruments that
00:16:53.220
were typically most associated with
00:16:55.320
those who were able to invest a lot of
00:16:56.759
money the wealthy essentially and we've
00:16:59.820
made this in a very simple way that
00:17:01.560
anyone can pick up and use at any moment
00:17:04.500
and that involves tools like stock
00:17:07.860
trading
00:17:09.000
ETFs crypto managed investing along with
00:17:12.900
a series of other applications as well
00:17:16.260
but one of the main problems that we've
00:17:18.660
encountered with while simple is that uh
00:17:20.939
in the path towards democratizing wealth
00:17:23.100
you know we've we've found ourselves in
00:17:25.020
a very uh difficult situation because a
00:17:27.720
lot of the systemic issues that have
00:17:29.100
plagued uh North America in general
00:17:31.160
which is essentially that
00:17:34.200
um there's a lack of Education around a
00:17:36.120
lot of these financial instruments so a
00:17:38.100
lot of the people that actually need
00:17:39.480
these products the most see investing as
00:17:42.240
something that is unattainable see
00:17:44.640
trading as something that's uh difficult
00:17:46.620
to understand and very risky so the
00:17:48.660
people that need these products the most
00:17:50.100
can benefit from it just aren't using it
00:17:53.340
so that's where my organization comes in
00:17:55.620
uh we're well simple Foundation we're
00:17:58.320
not-for-profit organization that's
00:18:00.419
partnered with and founded by uh the
00:18:03.000
larger organization which is wall simple
00:18:05.000
and uh we're really going out to achieve
00:18:07.799
that same goal of Financial Freedom for
00:18:10.500
all
00:18:11.400
um and the way we do this is by breaking
00:18:13.320
down barriers uh and really
00:18:16.500
um really uh how do I put this
00:18:19.940
encouraging people to pursue
00:18:22.140
post-secondary education and we do this
00:18:25.320
through a series of different ways but
00:18:27.240
most notably we offer bursaries we
00:18:30.720
provide a lot of tailored programming
00:18:33.299
specifically centered around financial
00:18:34.740
literacy because we notice a lot of
00:18:36.660
people just didn't know what uh compound
00:18:39.179
interest was didn't know what credit
00:18:40.980
scores were so it's hard to really teach
00:18:43.080
about uh why it's important to invest
00:18:45.539
when you don't know a lot of these
00:18:47.760
basics of investing
00:18:49.740
um but there's also what we offer is an
00:18:52.740
education savings platform for something
00:18:54.480
called in resp which is uh in in its
00:18:58.740
education savings investment account
00:19:01.200
that's provided by the government that
00:19:03.419
allows for you to do a few different
00:19:05.640
things and that includes tax breaks so
00:19:08.940
if you're
00:19:10.620
um you don't actually get taxed on any
00:19:12.179
of the amounts that you're contributing
00:19:13.380
to the accounts but when you withdraw
00:19:16.260
your tax at that tax rate when you first
00:19:18.360
start school so it's typically at a
00:19:20.640
lower tax rate and you're able to
00:19:23.000
save a lot of money that way and the
00:19:25.679
government also offers a lot of
00:19:27.240
government grants as well both the
00:19:29.580
federal government and the provincial
00:19:30.840
government through contribution matching
00:19:33.660
and also if you're in a low to modest
00:19:36.419
income level they provide a few grants
00:19:39.120
as well for that too
00:19:41.400
so uh we this organization really works
00:19:45.720
because we have this interesting
00:19:47.700
symbiotic relationship with our parents
00:19:50.700
organization where we both mutually
00:19:52.620
benefit off each other
00:19:54.539
um well simple essentially gives us
00:19:57.620
funding and human capital in the terms
00:20:00.780
of people that volunteer with the
00:20:02.460
organization and some of our Outreach
00:20:04.260
initiatives
00:20:05.360
but also we go back and in turn help
00:20:08.100
well simple achieve their goal of
00:20:09.419
Financial Freedom by essentially
00:20:11.400
providing this uh this investing
00:20:13.860
platform for Education that specifically
00:20:16.200
Targets this segment of the population
00:20:18.600
that is historically under banked
00:20:21.440
and essentially that's the way that we
00:20:24.000
both help each other and it really works
00:20:26.340
out
00:20:28.080
um but we're a little bit different from
00:20:29.520
like what typically happens
00:20:32.400
um with most corporate give back
00:20:34.200
programs typically when you think of a a
00:20:36.240
corporate give back problem program it's
00:20:37.860
usually pledging a certain amount of
00:20:39.600
money to an initiative that the
00:20:41.220
organization cares about or an emissions
00:20:44.400
Target but after that initial investment
00:20:48.240
is made there's really no involvement
00:20:51.240
um with uh whatever that initiative was
00:20:54.360
versus what we do with the well symbol
00:20:56.520
Foundation we're actively partnering
00:20:58.380
with different members of the community
00:20:59.960
and tailoring our uh our content more to
00:21:03.960
suit their needs so we might go to a
00:21:06.000
student organization and teach them
00:21:07.320
about what a predatory credit card is or
00:21:09.720
go to
00:21:11.820
um go to an organization where uh like a
00:21:14.460
homeless organization teach what credit
00:21:16.380
scores are and it really varies and we
00:21:18.480
really tailor a lot of our content to
00:21:21.120
whoever we're dealing with
00:21:23.400
but one of the main issues that we
00:21:26.100
encounter with wall simple Foundation is
00:21:28.500
that uh it's actually because of the
00:21:30.900
name that we share with while simple
00:21:33.360
um we're under a lot of scrutiny by the
00:21:35.700
uh federal government and the federal
00:21:38.280
tax agency which essentially says that
00:21:41.460
we cannot actually advertise while
00:21:43.440
simple products in any of these Outreach
00:21:45.059
initiatives and the main reason the main
00:21:48.059
implication of this is that uh we can we
00:21:52.140
have to keep this neutral opinion about
00:21:53.640
whatever uh financial institution uh the
00:21:56.400
people were with the people were trying
00:21:58.799
to help out are with which means
00:22:00.960
obviously Our intention is not to get
00:22:02.640
more people to use well sample but we're
00:22:04.380
losing a lot of uh losing a lot of
00:22:06.720
Revenue that could be reinvested back
00:22:08.640
into the application reinvested back
00:22:10.740
into the community to provide better uh
00:22:13.919
better tooling better uh more tailored
00:22:16.980
programming and really expand our reach
00:22:18.480
to other areas
00:22:20.580
um so the way that we overcome this is
00:22:23.360
by having this unique focus on
00:22:25.679
engineering so another thing that really
00:22:27.659
separates while simple Foundation is we
00:22:29.460
have a team of dedicated Engineers uh
00:22:31.980
which is a team that I'm actually on as
00:22:33.960
well uh that actively work on the
00:22:36.299
products but also uh volunteer for these
00:22:38.700
Outreach initiatives on a regular basis
00:22:40.559
and what this means essentially is that
00:22:43.140
I'm creating this product and I'm also
00:22:45.600
working with people in the community as
00:22:47.760
well and learning a little bit about
00:22:50.100
um the problems that they're facing and
00:22:52.679
learning a little bit more about uh how
00:22:55.200
I can make this application a little bit
00:22:56.820
better for them
00:22:58.620
um and on top of that it's really
00:23:00.780
awesome to have this this team of
00:23:03.360
dedicated Engineers uh because we're
00:23:06.240
we're really working towards building
00:23:07.620
out this awesome products
00:23:09.860
but I'll move on to the next Slide the
00:23:12.179
the the main rewards of working for
00:23:14.880
non-profit arm
00:23:16.400
uh it's it's honestly amazing to think
00:23:19.440
that in the past two years we've helped
00:23:21.299
8.7 000 students uh receive 5.4 uh
00:23:25.140
million dollars in funding and a lot of
00:23:26.760
this funding uh was actually just going
00:23:28.740
uh completely unclaimed
00:23:31.380
um and we've delivered about 2
00:23:33.480
000 uh uh we delivered to 2000 people
00:23:35.880
financial literacy material
00:23:38.460
um and that's been from everything uh
00:23:40.919
like completely tailored uh original
00:23:43.140
presentations each time but from an
00:23:45.360
engineering perspective it's it's so
00:23:47.400
interesting to uh to think that like the
00:23:50.580
code I write every day I then get to go
00:23:53.520
back into the community and see how they
00:23:55.080
use this application or see the issues
00:23:56.640
that they they face and I get to
00:23:59.580
um you know be that very important first
00:24:01.440
step on their path to Financial Freedom
00:24:03.960
um but on top of that I get to work with
00:24:05.520
a lot of
00:24:06.780
um very passionate individuals not
00:24:09.539
necessarily just the engineers or Sports
00:24:12.059
staff that I work with but getting to
00:24:13.860
meet people in the community and and
00:24:15.419
hear the stories is definitely uh it's
00:24:18.000
really empowering
00:24:20.039
so
00:24:21.780
I've given you a lot of materials to
00:24:23.520
really think about here
00:24:25.380
um but if you're going to do anything my
00:24:27.059
number one tip is like keep it really
00:24:29.340
small and something that's very
00:24:31.440
attainable as well so I think uh for me
00:24:34.559
when I first got started like it's it
00:24:36.600
can be anything from like watching a
00:24:39.000
YouTube video about uh how to make a a
00:24:41.880
website more accessible it could be
00:24:43.760
reaching out to an organization that
00:24:46.020
you've always been interested in it
00:24:48.240
could be anything as simple as just you
00:24:49.980
know scheduling 15 minutes in your
00:24:51.419
calendar to
00:24:53.640
um like just brainstorm about uh
00:24:55.740
different ways you can give back to the
00:24:56.940
community but whatever you choose I hope
00:24:59.580
this presentation really inspired you to
00:25:01.580
use your skills as a software engineer
00:25:04.380
to go really give back to the community
00:25:06.659
thank you