Virtual Volunteerism Webinar: Internet-Based Ways to Donate Time

The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGB) hosted this webinar to highlight Virtual Volunteerism, the practice of leveraging broadband to match individual volunteers with nonprofit organizations to provide direct services to those in need. The event featured presenters from the United Nations and entities successfully using the Virtual Volunteerism model to provide services to their clients.  The webinar took place on Wednesday, December 2 starting at 1:00 p.m. EST and was streamed live and for free at fcc.gov/live.

The goal of the webinar was to provide information on what Virtual Volunteerism is and how charitable and governmental organizations use the Virtual Volunteerism model to match willing volunteers from around the globe with those who could use their assistance.

Agenda:

1:00 p.m. – 1:05 p.m.             Welcome

          David Savolaine, Consumer Education and Outreach Specialist      

          FCC Consumer Affairs and Outreach Division

1:05 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.             Opening and Keynote Remarks

                                                Ajit Pai, Chairman

                                                Federal Communications Commission

1:15 p.m. – 1:25 p.m.             United Nations Volunteers

Naoual Driouich, Chief of UN System Affairs & New York Office

1:25 p.m. – 1:35 p.m.             Be My Eyes

           Alexander Hauerslev Jensen, CCO             

1:35 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.             Crisis Text Hotline

            Ashley Womble, Head of Public Affairs

1:45 p.m. – 1:55 p.m.             Infinite Family

                                    Amy Stokes, President and CEO

1:55 p.m. – 2:05 p.m.            Open Street Map Foundation

Mikel Maron, OSM Foundation Board Member & Community Team Leader at Mapbox

2:05 p.m. – 2:25 p.m.             Open Roundtable and Facilitated Q&A

                                                Eduard Bartholme, Associate Chief,

                                                FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau

2:25 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.             Event Wrap Up and Closing Remarks

                                                Patrick Webre, Chief

                                                FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau

Biographies

Amy Conrad Stokes is Founder, President and CEO of Infinite Family and Infinite Family, South Africa.

Ms. Stokes has spent more than 30 years working in all areas of business planning, start-up and ongoing management. Following the adoption of her son, Calder Qhawe, from South Africa in 2003, Ms. Stokes was inspired to develop an Internet platform using video technology to enable distance mentoring and comprehensive teen skills development. After two years of research, development and team building, she launched Infinite Family in 2006. Ms. Stokes began employing and mentoring at-risk teens while working at Chicago’s Shorebank Corporation in 1996. At Shorebank, she created and ran Studio Air, a training business that employed teens from Chicago’s gang influenced South Shore neighborhoods. It was here that she learned the power of mentoring in the life of a teen with few positive role models or economic choices. Ms. Stokes started her professional career as part of Andersen’s Consulting Strategic Services team in Chicago, then San Francisco. She graduated from Kalamazoo College magna cum laude with a B.A. degree in economics (Honors) and French and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Naoual Driouich is Chief of the UN System Affairs & New York Office, United Nations Volunteers (UNV).

Before joining the United Nations Volunteers programme,  Ms. Naoual Driouich served as Senior Advisor with UN Women.  Prior to that she served in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as Human Resources Business Advisor in New York, and as Deputy Resident Representative in the United Arab Emirates and earlier in Yemen.   Earlier in her career, Ms. Driouich worked with the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Liberia, and the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq.  Ms. Driouich holds a Master’s degree in Social Sciences from Long Island University in New York, USA.

Alexander Hauerslev Jensen is the CCO of Be My Eyes, a company dedicated to making the world more accessible and inclusive for people with visual impairments. His work at Be My Eyes focuses on enabling people with low vision to lead more independent lives through innovative business models and strategic corporate partnerships. Over this time Be My Eyes has grown to support hundreds of thousands of blind and low vision users by connecting them to over 4.5 million sighted volunteers and industry leading companies.

Mikel Maron is a Board Member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, the not for profit that supports OpenStreetMap -- the open map that anyone can edit and use. Mikel also leads the Community team at Mapbox, helping to grow the adoption of open geo data in humanitarian organizations, governments and education. Previously, as Presidential Innovation Fellow at the US State Department Mikel drove OpenStreetMap adoption across federal agencies. He is co-founder of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, co-founder of Map Kibera and GroundTruth Initiative. He holds a master’s degree in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems from the University of Sussex, and bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from UC Santa Cruz.

Ashley Womble, MPH, is the Head of Public Affairs at Crisis Text Line. Ashley frequently speaks about Crisis Text Line’s innovative and lifesaving service. Before joining Crisis Text Line, Ashley ran communications and marketing at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Fountain House, and Phoenix House. Before entering the mental health space, she was an editor at Hearst and Time, Inc. Ashley is the author of “Everything Is Going to Be OK: A Real Talk Guide to Living Well with Mental Illness.” She has a masters in public health, so she believes you should get a flu shot, and will talk about health policy as long as you’ll listen.