New York Tech’s Amy Bravo Honored for Her Commitment to STEM

Senior Director of Career Success and Experiential Education Amy Bravo, M.A., received the Education Leadership Award at The National Urban Technology Center’s (Urban Tech) 28th annual Urban Tech Gala earlier this month in New York City.

The honor acknowledges Bravo’s work, in partnership with Urban Tech, to uplift communities through transformative educational programs. Program development, project planning, and operational support are just a few of the ways she and New York Tech have supported Urban Tech in its pledge to provide higher education and access to technology jobs to under-resourced families. 

Urban Tech is a New York City-based not-for-profit that aims to transform education for students across elementary, middle, and high school levels through digital storytelling, critical thinking, and social-emotional learning. “Watching students learn, serve, grow, and succeed inspires us to continue to pave a more equitable path to success for even more underserved communities,” said Bravo as she accepted her award.

Bravo was honored along with others, including Otis Rolley, chairman of philanthropy and community impact for Wells Fargo, who received the Community Impact Award, and Andy Muir, chief financial officer for Skims, who received the Visionary Award. Proceeds raised from the event will provide underserved youth with access to opportunities through the power of technology.

New York Tech began its partnership with Urban Tech last year and is now part of the organization’s community of corporations, nonprofits, public schools, and government agencies committed to diversifying STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) leadership through education. 

This commitment provided an opportunity for several New York Tech students (more than 40 of whom volunteered leading up to and at the gala) to be involved in supporting Urban Tech’s mission to motivate and prepare young students for college and their future careers. They served as tutors, trainers, tech assistants, and event coordinators.

“The overarching reason we started partnering with Urban Tech was to help them develop computer science programs in two middle schools in Brooklyn,” Bravo said. This also involved redesigning classrooms into STEM-related training spaces for students, teachers, and parents, an effort led by Assistant Professor of Architecture Dong-Sei Kim, M.Des., and four students in the School of Architecture and Design. 

In her award acceptance remarks, Bravo referenced reflections from Elise Park, a third-year architecture student, about her experience working on this project: “Personally, the best part of the design process was being able to truly understand what is important for certain individuals and why it is so important to them. I hope to learn more about how to truly listen to a community and how to integrate my design knowledge with a community’s expertise in mind to create a functional and beautiful space.”