Fund A Scholarship Help Kids Learn Today!
Charity & Entrepreneurship Start By Volunteering To Solve A Problem:
Teaching Girls to Code.Make.Own
NoizIvy.org was founded in 2001 to solve a problem existing within our public education system. Two types of thinking skills are dramatically absent from the educational process in most schools: entrepreneurial thinking and computational thinking. In both cases, this absence affects how students engage real world opportunities, and how communities confront problem-solving challenges.
One of the challenges to solving this problem exists due to the nature of our education system; it is an employment system practicing education methods, and yet its goals define those methods. "Go to school, get good grades, get a degree, work real hard and climb the ladder of success" is a dated method of success that serves Institutional goals with employment mandates and objectives to achieve. This formula does not necessarily speak to the nature of our current socio-economic system anymore, and with increasing technological progress, the absence of both hands-on "maker skills" and computational problem-solving literacy is an increasing problem for our system to overcome.
NoizIvy.org has reached tens of thousands of kids and young adults over the years. Within school-based programs we have led kids to start business ventures, conceptualize local approaches to local problems, learn banking and financial planning skills, make prototypes and begin the journey of learning to think as an entrepreneur. We have worked in some of the largest and poorest communities in New York, Virginia and Washington DC, in both urban and rural settings. And while some of our latest efforts have received attention the bulk of our efforts have been quietly effective and independently supported without help from corporate donors or foundations. As a result, we have built a very effective, unique and resilient organization that not only teaches entrepreneurial and technical skills, but uses these methods to support our own existence as a public-benefit charity.
That being said, we need your help to scale our efforts! Open education does not receive the same attention that programs targeting racial or gender demographics specifically receive. While corporate "At-Risk" funding strategies have the goal of empowering segments of our population that legitimately need the support, the lack of open inclusive methods can create new problems and stall progress that open and integrated opportunities achieve. There need not be one approach, there is room for different methods, but the absence of general support for open programs is note-worthy and debilitating to community empowerment. As a result, independent funding sources are critical to the success of such efforts.
Take a look at kidOYO, our effort to increase the hands-on maker skills of young people, and to influence the confidence of school teachers, public libraries and other youth organizations serving STEAM related goals with practical methods that are easy to engage and work with. If you live on Long Island in New York, visit CodeLI.org or if you are near the Fredericksburg, Virginia area visit FredxCoders.com and experience what happens when mentors & students aged 7-17 get together in free live events to learn how to code and design interactions with computers, data and networks.
NoizIvy.org is defined by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) public charity with an explicit public-benefit mission, and all donations in support of our mission of increasing entrepreneurial learning via technology are deductible from income taxes in the United States of America. Check with your accountant or financial adviser for specific filing requirements. Consider donating now in support of the young creative minds that advance Society by their hard work and imagination. An entrepreneurial education is an iterative education, often a result of failing forward one step at a time through trial and error. It requires patience and repetitive exposure to yield results.
Every small donation is a big help and creates leverage for our efforts. Students need to learn with the tools of production, and not just with tools of consumption and accessibility. Laptops are just as important as touch pads, indeed critically so, since kids who grow up on touch pads often struggle to operate computing machines in the manner used by code wranglers and makers... being keyboard-centric and hackable as they are. All of our programs are designed to be inclusive; we do not segregate our learning community by gender or race, and to the greatest extent possible make both free and cost bearing programs available to the widest population possible.
As a lean organization, our ability to react to community interest and support students as they seek advanced skills is greatly affected by the funding support of our donors. We achieve together.
NoizIvy.org
EIN: 52-2330471
501(c)(3) Entrepreneurship & Technology Education Public Benefit Organization