User:Jjm4114

Jeff Mascornick is a graduate student at the University of Delaware focusing on nonprofit management. He has a strong social science background and holds a Masters Degree in Sociology: Rural and Environmental Development, and B.A. in Geography and Anthropology – both from the University of Montana. During the past two years Jeff was a VISTA member at a comprehensive social service organization working as an AmeriCorpsVISTA grant writer securing approximately $1 million in grant funding during this time.

He has served as board member and/or volunteer at several nonprofits focusing on environmental sustainability, early childhood development, and social justice over the past several years. Jeff's interests include [among others] nonprofit management, environmental sustainability, social entrepreneurship, the application of Web 2.0 technology by nonprofits and philanthropic organizations, and participatory democracy. He is motivated by the desire to work towards social justice and environmental sustainability in a world where so many have so little and so few have so much and where greed and apathy continue to threaten ecosystems and social structures. He is committed to the mission of OLPC and believes that the program has the potential to create an Open Source collaborative learning environment that will create possible solutions to both of these problems by educating and empowering children one laptop, one text message, one collaborative project at a time.

Jeff brings the following skills to the StudentsTeach: • Project planning, development and evaluation • Fundraising • Nonprofit governance • Significant analytical and critical thinking skills • Cultural competency

Although Jeff does not have a technical background he is comfortable enough with information technology to succeed in providing a bridge between the students and teachers and the IT specialist(s) his team will be working with in Tarakea. After all, in order to bridge the technology gap the ability to utilize technology must become (and is becoming) a tool that the average person (not only technicians) can utilize to connect, collaborate and effect change within an Open Source environment in the Information Age.