"Bridging the Digital Tech Divide Amongst Minorities in Our Community"

TTS truly values community and fostering a strong ecosystem through dynamic and collaborative educational and networking events that bring local startup/tech companies and local professionals together. TTS students are able to immerse themselves in the community, fostering lasting personal and career related relationships with the best people in the community.Tech Talent South (TTS) is a Charlotte-based coding bootcamp dedicated to fostering talent in technology throughout the southeast United States and aid the region in evolving its high-tech hubs.GEMZ founding member Jackie Posada’s career has been in the marketing, business development and sales for over 25 years with the last 15 years being an online/offline entrepreneur Small business, Nonprofit Consultant. She has been heavily involved with helping the Latino, minority community start and grow businesses and nonprofits as well. She has facilitated marketing bilingual trainings for Building Contractors, local small businesses as well as nonprofit organizations.GEMZ Founding member Jarrisha Fibonacci, an alumni recipient of Foundation for the Carolinas, Charlotte Housing Authority Scholarship Fund has worked for the past 15 years helping minorities in underprivileged communities find employment as well as start up businesses. She also worked in alliance with small businesses and community organizations to secure grant funding for youth, elderly and disabled persons.

Gemz Community Development Corporation & Tech Talent South

Hosted by GEMZ Community Development Corporation and Tech Talent South, we will discuss topics such as how to bridge the divide among minorities and women in digital technology careers, and how to increase access to resources for under-represented communities.
GEMZ is a non-profit organization dedicated to the empowerment of minorities, women, Latino/Hispanic community, youth and elderly in the areas of technology, forward thinking marketing career skills training and entrepreneurship through the use of Tech Innovation, workshops, accelerator programs and education.
We firmly believe that by empowering this underserved community with the technological skills they require we can close the education and economic gaps which are all too prevalent in our communities.
We provide community impact and transformation thru the equitable distribution of tech tools, training and workshops.
Our Focus is Entrepreneurial Training For Minority Women, Latino community and Youth etc. We offer online and offline educational training using high tech resources for Complete Automation and Optimization for our participants in our community to develop their Entrepreneurial and career skill set.
GEMZ community training programs offer upward economic mobility by enhancing their skills sets with the tools and trainings necessary for them to gain entry into professional careers and or start/grow a business successfully offline and online as well as provide for their families and contribute to the community. 
With the collaboration with Tech Talent South and our Community we can all close the gap in bridging the digital tech divide in Charlotte and the Technology industry!! #Beadifferencemaker!!
 
MEET OUR PANEL SPEAKERS!!!
TED PENDERGRASS
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Ted Prendergast is a veteran in the tech recruiting world with 15 years of experience working for tech startups and fortune 50 companies like Target and Lowe’s and currently for Red Ventures. He’s passionate about building Charlotte into a destination for tech talent to live, learn, work and grow. He recently helped with the Amazon HQ2 pitch project and has spoken at recent tech events at the Nascar Hall of Fame, Skookum’s tech talks and most recently created and hosted the Queen City Hackathon.
Ted Prendergast Technology Recruiting 1101 Red Ventures Drive Fort Mill, SC 29707 Phone/Fax: 704-697-1349 tprendergast@redventures.com <A HREF="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redventures.com%2F&h=ATO3uDCZXvHpW4xjahIDH1ASliwKp7TqLeoZAoVOJnrrYVSVFwte-8HPmEpiDRh_agRudoxgjV2LBksCPDbtMK75BY7W6TZhFHizWwWDiDt2feda9-wg-Cch9usraFLPUINrrSQTV7IJ7oBRzOY" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">www.redventures.com</A> 
DENISE WILLIS GERST
DeNise Gerst has taugt in urban schools for the past 19 years. DeNise enjoys encouraging fellow educators through conferences, workshops and seminars. DeNise has served as a Mary Fraiser fellow, Charlotte Teachers Institute and a North Carolina Science Leadership Fellow and currently severs on the committee. DeNise is currently a science facilitator and has previously taught grades 1,2,4, and 5  as a classroom teacher. She is also and author.
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BRYAN EVANS
Bryan Evans is an extremely talented media artist and entrepreneur who has been involved in multiple block buster movies and TV series! Sparked by Jurassic Park, Bryan knew he wanted to make the multimedia his chosen path.
 He was born in Jackson, Mississippi and raised in the beautiful city of Chapel Hill, NC. There was no doubt that post-secondary education was in his future. After High School, he attended North Carolina A&T State University majoring in Graphic Communication Systems with a concentration in "Computer Aided Design. His passion would later lead him to the Digital Media Arts College where he received his master’s in animation and visual effects.
 Bryan’s first job was with a small studio in Los Angeles, CA called Stereo D. He was there for 2 and a half years before he was called to the Big Apple to head up his own Tracking/Matchmove department. His hard work was paying off! Bigger city, bigger pay and bigger opportunity awaited him in New York City. Experiencing much success, Bryan knew he needed to take what he learned about the industry to nurture his own ambition. With a lot of faith, courage, persistence and determination, Bryan decided to start up his own company. In 2016, he officially became the proud owner of Infiniti LLC., a multimedia post-production company located in Charlotte, NC.
 Currently, Bryan resides in Charlotte, NC with his beautiful wife Tabitha and 2 children, a son Bryan II and a daughter, Mackenzie. When he is not in front of a computer screen doing amazing work, spending time with his family and creating memories is his favorite thing to do.
 Bryan is determined to make his mark and infuse the multimedia industry into the city of Charlotte, NC. His ten-year plan involves the growth of the industry and a strong networking that will bring others to the city.
 The visual effects industry is a very competitive field, but, according to Bryan, “If the dream is big enough, the facts don’t matter”. Also, “Failing is part of the process, but don’t make it a part of you”.  He leveraged learning from his failures and past mistakes to work harder and be on top of his area of expertise. He did not let failures deter the path he had chosen.
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LESLIE ALVARADO
Born in Florida, she was raised by her mother and father, who had immigrated to the US from El Salvador in the late 80's. As the first born of two native Salvadorians Leslie entered kindergarten with little no knowledge of English, thanks to her amazing teachers she learned English in 3 years and continued through her next 10 years of schooling at an accelerated rate. In August of 2013, she began her first year at Davidson College. She majored in Mathematics with a particular focus in Computer Science and graduated in May of 2017. While at Davidson she was named the inaugural Tech Impact Fellow for Davidson College and as a part of her fellowship she created a Virtual Reality experience that placed white students into the headspace of a student of color at a predominantly white institution. She went on to work with Davidson's IT department on more VR experiences with corporate partners in the area. Now she is the Product and Curriculum Coordinator at Tech Talent South and focuses on providing wonderful curriculum to all of TTS' lovely students across the country.
KABELO RAMAPATA 
Kabelo C. Ramatapa is a native of South Africa. Born and raised in North of Johannesburg, he was directly recruited by the President of Johnson C. University, through the Duke endowment presidential/scholarship. He holds two honors degrees from the U.S. one in Economics and another in Business Marketing. He was president of the most prestigious youth group in South Africa, under the partnership of Phuthadijaba and Afrika Tikkun with the Afrika Tikkun with the goal to make a difference in the South African economy by developing and uplifting young people living in underprivileged communities. He strongly believes that every young person deserves the opportunity to be the best that they can be! He very instrumental in construction of two youth centers in Johannesburg which services the youth and children around his community The center have a kindergarten, Library, computer lab, a gym, and kitchen that serves free breakfast and lunch for the elderly and children.
 He is the founder of Global~Connect International which deals with Cleaning, Logistics and marketing. He is also a partner at Trash-it-Out a valet trash company that deals with commercial and residential cleaning. During ha free time he likes trading stocks and giving back to the community. His future aspiration is becoming the first youngest Ambassador of the Republic of South Africa to the United States of America.
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<DIV>ARU ANAVEKAR</DIV>
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<DIV>Aru is a CEO/Co-Founder <A HREF="http://botsplash.com/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">botsplash.com</A>, Tech Enthusiast and Proficient Product Manager. Prior to startup venture botsplash, Aru worked at LendingTree for 8 years. Her journey at LendingTree started as Developer and transitioned to Tech Lead, Implementation Engineer, Sales-Business Liaison and Product Management. As Co-Founder of botsplash Aru manages product research, promotions, marketing, social media, investor relationship and sales.  botsplash is a Live Chat + Automated Bots messaging platform for managing consumer engagement across different digital channels.  Aru loves putting together  creative and fun learning material for her 5 yr old daughter. Some of these ideas have been digitized into a kids learning app - Mawe. Aru is also the promoter for Mawe App, and this app is on App Store and Google play.</DIV>
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<DIV>Aru also co-hosts the Charlotte Bots and AI meetup - that meets once a month to hear presenters talk about Automation, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and related topics.  </DIV>
<DIV>More details <A HREF="https://www.meetup.com/Charlotte-Bots-and-AI-Meetup/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.meetup.com/Charlotte-Bots-and-AI-Meetup/</A> </DIV>
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Aru loves to explore, learn and share new topics with people around her.  Empowering and encouraging other is the best way for self-empowerment. Aru tries to live up to this thought.</DIV>

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