WAKE- Women's Alliance for Knowledge Exchange

WAKE- Women's Alliance for Knowledge Exchange

Non profit organization

Through Tech2Empower, WAKE supports change-makers by getting technology expertise to women leaders in the NGO sector, social entrepreneurs and at schools focused on providing quality education and leadership training for girls and young women. We do this by connecting them with teams of volunteer Advisors from top companies such as Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce as well as smaller companies. Advisors collaborate with local partners through hands-on project work, coaching and training on tech tools. WAKE has supported 230+ social impact organizations and trained, coached, and mentored over 1,200 leaders and students from 11 countries and 25 states in the U.S.

Contact via email

Target populations:

Women

Girls

Focus areas:

Education

Entrepreneurship/Business

Leadership/Capacitation

Volunteer/Sustainable travel

Organizational contacts & locations

Contacts

Isabela Lyrio

International Programs Officer

(+502) 5495-2724

isabela@wakeinternational.org

Locations

Mission, vision & values

Mission

WAKE’s mission is to harness the power of technology, volunteerism and collaboration to help move the needle for equality, equity and social justice.

Vision

WHAT WE DO

We engage allies across sectors to share their talent, access and resources to advance social justice; We connect social justice leaders and activists with demand-driven project consulting, tools and training to amplify and scale their work; We deliver leadership, mentoring and technology programs for young women and girls through schools, clubs and organizations; We bring together allies and leverage partnerships to accelerate an agenda for equality, equity and social justice in the United States and around the world.

Values

We value empowerment

respect

integrity and teamwork

Products, services, and programs

Services

Through Tech2Empower, we support change-makers by getting technology expertise to women leaders in the NGO sector, social entrepreneurs and at schools focused on providing quality education and leadership training for girls and young women. We do this by connecting them with teams of volunteer Advisors from top companies such as Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce as well as smaller companies. Advisors collaborate with local partners through hands-on project work, coaching and training on tech tools.

Organizational detail

Founded

2015

Number of employees

0-10

Funding

Private donations

Primary issue(s) / need(s) addressed

At WAKE we believe that all over the world women leaders are doing incredible work for their communities but often lack access to tools and technology that could take their work further and create greater impact. Through our initiative Tech2Empower, we support change-makers by getting technology expertise to women leaders in the NGO sector, social entrepreneurs, and at schools focused on providing quality education and leadership training for girls and young women. We do this by connecting them with teams of volunteer Advisors from top companies such as Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce as well as smaller companies. Advisors collaborate with local partners through hands-on project work, coaching and training on tech tools.

We know through anecdotal evidence and direct experience as a small nonprofit that organizations doing important, meaningful work for their communities often lack access to technology and skills due to constraints in resources and opportunities.

Impact, adaptations & objectives

Impact to date

Since our founding in 2015, WAKE has supported 275+ social impact organizations and directly trained, coached, and mentored over 1,400 leaders and students from 12 countries and 25 U.S. states through Tech2Empower. This work also has a multiplying effect, as each organization and leader that joins Tech2Empower is able to then provide greater support to the community they serve.

Impact measuring

We conduct impact surveys immediately following every program and reach out to participating organizations later for follow-up on longterm impact.

Organizational adaptations

Size and/or structure

Location

Organizational adaptation details

Size and/or structure

WAKE began as a small team of two co-founders motivated to bring technology access and expertise to women leaders around the world.

Location

In the years since being founded the team has grown to include 6 team members and our Tech2Empower program has been implemented in Ukraine, Cambodia, Peru, Rwanda, Nepal, and Guatemala, as well as across the United States. During COVID, WAKE was able to expand this work to support organizations in a virtual format as well.

Short term objectives

Growth

At WAKE we are always striving to grow our reach and develop deeper relationships with the communities that we support. Over the next year we strive to reach new communities doing impactful work, devote more time to a community we have worked with in the past by bringing our program back to a region (this year we are returning to Guatemala to host Tech2Empower for a third time).

Impact

Strengthen our impact by instituting follow-up virtual support to organizations that join our programs.

Long term objectives

Growth

Our goal in the longterm is to grow our programming to run more Tech2Empower programs each year, with a focus on introducing a new country/location each year while committing to returning to prior Tech2Empower locations as well each year in order to deepen our relationships with those communities.

Profile updated: 07/24/23

WAKE- Women's Alliance for Knowledge Exchange