Tag: Blog
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Where Technology Meets Community: Spotlight on Rhiannon O’Donnell
Written by Isabella Jaramillo A New Beginning in Gainesville As a college freshman [in 2021], Rhiannon, like many others, felt a desire to explore, grow, and prove something to herself. New to the Gainesville community, she wanted to make a difference, inspired by her father. She shared that volunteering transformed her father’s life after his…
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Enhancing Accessibility: Real-Time Capacity Tracking for Shelters and Resource Centers
Authors: University of Michigan, Reach Consulting Group: Subin Pyo, Leyre Orduna Abadia, Shakuntala Balusu, Benjamin Goldenstein, Ethan Hod, Elsa Pater, Harshal Vepamakula FCI Public Affairs Team: Mariana Garcia-Leal, Carissa Masselli, Aniqa Ahmed Table of Contents Prefer to read offline or share a copy? Click below to download the full report as a PDF. Executive Summary…
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FCI Handbook
Florida Community Innovation (FCI) started in 2020 with a simple but powerful goal: use tech, research, and outreach to help Florida communities thrive. At FCI, we offer our skills to organizations doing the hard work on the ground and stay committed to building with, not for, the communities we serve. That’s why we pay students—especially…
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FCI’s Take on Ethical Fundraising
Fundraising is a big part of how nonprofits keep going, but it can be tricky to do it in a way that’s fair and transparent. That’s why FCI students and volunteers came together to create this quick and easy guide to ethical fundraising. This guide emphasizes ethical fundraising practices—being transparent, respectful, and accountable to both…
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FCI Students Illustrate the Impacts of Climate Gentrification in Miami via a Data Walk, with the Aim of Inspiring Community Action
This blog post summarizes what we – Florida Community Innovation’s students and volunteers – have researched about the topic of climate gentrification, shares data visualizations we created, recounts our experience hosting a Data Walk about this topic in Miami, and shares ideas for how you can get involved to help with this topic. Read on,…
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Innovating for Impact: Insights from FCI’s Rally Accelerator Experience
The Florida Resource Map (FRM) team at Florida Community Innovation (FCI) recently had the privilege of attending a Rally Accelerator Workshop in Orlando, Florida. Rich Nguyen, Joel Samuel, and Nick Tayag — all undergraduates at the University of Florida — of the FRM team learned skills such as refining a pitch, problem-solving, and keeping FCI…
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FCI’s Mission to Enhance LGBTQ+ Resource Access: A Congressional Briefing Spotlight
Florida Community Innovation (FCI) connects Florida’s citizens with trusted information and resources to navigate challenging times. We do this by empowering young innovators to build scalable social services technology, do research, and engage in community service for their own communities, with over 50 students and volunteers of all ages supported by FCI. FCI has partnered…
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Engaging with Educational Institutions for Civic Tech Research and Development
Creating opportunities for civic technologists in training is a crucial part of Florida Community Innovation (FCI)’s mission. We’re often asked by our nonprofit partners: what advice would you give to other organizations looking to engage with educational institutions on civic tech efforts in a sustainable way? This guide is an overview of FCI’s advice on…
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Things you need to know about domestic violence and language barriers
At FCI, while we develop projects like the Florida Community Resource Map, we strive to think and write critically about issues that the Map could help address. The newest version of the Map will include domestic violence resources, and we’re hoping to expand our Spanish-language offerings. Accordingly, one of our students and one of our board…
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Our Gainesville Data Walk
Florida Community Innovation (FCI) is a nonprofit based in Florida that empowers young innovators to build social services technologies for their communities and engage in public service projects. FCI’s projects include the Florida Community Resource Map – which will match Floridians in need to food banks, job resources, and more – as well as a…
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Studying Abroad Without Breaking the Bank: Advice from Erika and Aimee Clesi
On November 9, 2022, students from Florida Community Innovation interviewed Aimee and Erika Clesi, recent Gator grads and identical twins, about how they were able to study abroad multiple times while enrolled at the University of Florida (without breaking the bank!). Erika is now a journalist working in Florida and Aimee is a Rhodes Scholar…
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Harmonizing Hope: MADWOMAN and Max Bleiweis Lead the Way in Uplifting Gainesville’s Music Community
If I could describe the Gainesville music scene in one word, it would be “uplifting.” After experiencing how local music lovers in Gainesville uplift local artists through my involvement in Swamp Records, I decided to explore how these artists uplift each other. Musicians like the soul-funk band members of MADWOMAN and bassist Max Bleiweis stand…
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Ethical Considerations of Augmenting Healthcare with Artificial Intelligence
This post was crafted in partnership with the UF-VA Bioethics Unit. On October 28, 2022, the UF-VA Bioethics Unit hosted a Grand Rounds talk with Besa Bauta, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, about the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare. A recording of the talk is…
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Art-of-the-Possible Webinar: The Power of Data Science for Social Impact
Data science should be used for sustainable social impact – that was the main point made by all the panelists at a webinar hosted by the Central Florida Foundation (CFF) earlier this year. CFF is a valued partner of Florida Community Innovation (FCI), as both organizations support a mission of empowering young people to use…