RURAL TECHNOLOGY FUND
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Mission Statement
The mission of the RTF is to help students in rural and high poverty areas recognize opportunities in technology careers and gain the education necessary to work in the computer industry.
About This Cause
Rural students, even those with excellent grades, often have fewer opportunities for exposure to technology than their urban or suburban counterparts. Growing up in rural Kentucky, RTF Founder Chris Sanders saw this problem first-hand, and decided to do something about it. The Rural Technology Fund (RTF) recognizes the very real “digital divide” between rural and non-rural areas. For rural communities to remain economically viable and appealing as a home to new industry, technology-based or not, these communities need to fully understand the potential that technology can provide, and encourage growth of those skills in local youth. Ensuring that students from rural areas are able to go out and acquire the education they need and desire will go a long way to helping these communities overcome the digital divide. Unfortunately, technology is unlike agriculture, healthcare, or even legal fields, where even the smallest communities have practitioners who can provide support within the community. In the ultimate Catch-22, because rural areas are generally not where technology companies have offices, students interested in this type of career often find little community support in terms of local internship opportunities, education training programs, and/or mentoring opportunities. The founder of the RTF and several of its board members encountered this scenario when they graduated from their own rural high schools. With this personal experience driving The Rural Technology Fund, we seek to lower barriers to rural students and ensure that they have an easier road to technology-based careers. This is supported by several different programs. Classroom Tech Donations Learning begins in the classroom, but rural classrooms often lack the budgetary resources to provide access to equipment that students need to learn about electronics, programming, or engineering. The RTF works directly with schools and through Donors Choose to identify schools in rural and high poverty areas with a desire to provide these resources to their students. In some cases these donations may include a few smaller items like a Raspberry Pi microcomputer or a robotics kit. In other situations we partner with school districts to provide entire “Maker Spaces” equipped with all the latest technology to serve a variety of student interests. These Maker Spaces often include circuit development kits, 3-D printers, robotics kits, and sets of individual microcomputers. Scholarship Programs The RTF scholarship programs provide college grants to students from rural communities pursuing college education in computer technology. To date we’ve given over $25,000 in scholarships. You can read more about these programs here. In addition to financial awards, the RTF works with partners to provide our scholarship recipients with other technology resources that may be relevant to their specific educational passions. For example, a student interested in pursuing a career in computer graphic design might be provided a licensed copy of Adobe Photoshop along with additional books or training material.