Discriminology Expands Strategic Partnership and Strengthens its Advisory Team
Published: Feb 28, 2020
Discriminology, a leading justice oriented technology and education company, and Village of Wisdom (VOW), a leading community action research organization, is pleased to announce that they have been awarded a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) in the amount of $500K. This grant will serve to significantly expand and accelerate their strategic partnership to ensure all children have equitable access to the cultural and identity affirming learning environments they need to thrive in our nation’s education system and beyond.
Since 2017, Discriminology and VOW have worked together to advance the intellectual, empirical, and practice-based thought leadership in the culturally responsive education space. With the fresh infusion of support from CZI, Discriminology and VOW will complete the development of Discriminology+, a transformative new data platform built successfully in earlier collaborations between Discriminology and VOW and in partnership with families and communities. Discriminology+ will help drive school transformation work by facilitating conversations between communities and schools about both culturally relevant instruction (i.e., classroom-level equity opportunities) and a school’s institutional commitment to equity (i.e., school-level equity opportunities).
“Communities of color find our data and tools uniquely relevant because our organizations were founded and created by Black and Brown educators, engineers and researchers,” said DeMar Pitman, Chief Discriminologist, Discriminology. “From day one our work has been laser focused on working with Black, Brown and low-income families in addressing school inequities and shifting power imbalances. Consequently, we have created research-validated school climate assessments and technology specifically attuned to our communities’ needs.”
Discriminology would also like to announce several new additions to their advisory team. “A top priority for us is to continue to build our cross-functional advisory board. We believe today’s appointments demonstrate our commitment to adding depth, experience and leadership to our team as we further advance our strategic priorities in the US,” continued DeMar.
New Advisory Bios:
Darrell Booker - Darrell serves as a Senior Cloud Solution Architect with Microsoft working directly with CxOs of the world’s largest nonprofits in their digital transformation to the Azure cloud. His passion for the nonprofit sector began while serving as CTO for Think of Us, where he and his co-workers strived to use technology to improve the lives of youth transitioning out of foster care. Prior to his leadership efforts, Darrell, a software developer by education and passion, created and managed hundreds of websites, mobile apps and enterprise integrations for small businesses to large organizations such as state and federal government, banking and automotive.
Ashley Ma - Ashley Ma is a visual UX designer with 9+ years of experience in product design and design consulting; her work is often centered at the intersection of design and social impact. Ashley has worked on teams at Google, Google.org, Nest, Teague, Smart Design, and Apple.
Russ Finkelstein - Russ is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Clearly Next, a career navigation platform that helps people of all incomes build lifelong fulfilling careers. Russ was on the founding team of idealist.org where he served as Associate Director for 14 years. He has also served as an advisor on talent issues with Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP), New Organizing Institute (NOI), City Hall Fellows, Fund the People, the Schusterman Philanthropic Network and the Point Foundation. He’s been the recipient of fellowships from the New Organizing Institute, the Social Innovation Incubator, Selah and StartingBloc.