About Us:

First Tech Fund, a 501c3 nonprofit based in New York City, was founded by Hana Seligman and Josue De Paz, the latter who was formerly a low-income undocumented student living in a single parent household with no support and struggled breaking into higher education & the corporate workforce. Josue was eventually able to break cycles of poverty that existed in his family for generations, working in financial services and advertising before shifting mid-career to work in the social impact space.

After seeing students struggle in the pandemic with a lack of access to technology for school and extracurriculars, Josue & Hana felt called to take action and FTF was born. Initially founded as a way to provide low-income students across New York City with their "first tech" in the form of a laptop and unlimited wifi for free for students and their families, the organization quickly evolved to provide comprehensive support inclusive of college access advising, 1:1 mentorship from industry professionals, skills training, and paid internships.

Now going into our 4th year, we've evolved our work tremendously and are looking for the financial support from our community in order to scale our programs to reach more students, especially our growing workforce development program, which sees the highest demand from our students. In our second year of running our internship program, we were able to place 20 college-aged alumni in internships across tech, financial services, social justice, climate, and media organizations across New York City and beyond.

Why now?

As the nonprofit sector faces a challenging fundraising environment and the corporate sector sees an anti-DEI pushback, we need your help now more than ever to continue to provide the ecosystem of resources necessary to uplift our students as they continue on their journey to well-paying jobs across industries.

For our students, the impact of our work is clear: 93% of students surveyed stated that FTF made them more aware of the opportunities and career paths available to them, 82% of student survey stated they found a community and support at FTF, and 79% of students are more confident in using technology to reach their goals. Our workforce program saw 95% of interns express that the FTF Internship Program prepared them for future career opportunities.

We've supported 500+ students through our different programs and hope that you'll join our community of changemakers - we can't do it without you!

2024 Giving Tuesday - First Tech Fund

Supercharging mobility through tech access, mentorship, and workforce opportunities.

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