Tech Fleet’s New Mission Statement

We’re on a new mission to be the change that tech needs for the future. Read more in this article.

Overview

Earlier in 2024, Tech Fleet obtained 501(c)(3) public charity status as a nonprofit. Read more about it here.

Since then, the board of directors has worked to position the nonprofit to be in the best position to sustain itself.

We’re excited to introduce our new mission statement for the world.

In this article, read about Tech Fleet’s new mission statement and how we’ve formed it.

Why are we redefining our Mission Statement?

Tech Fleet is on an amazing growth curve. We have built incredible programs as a community-driven nonprofit. We’ve enabled hundreds of people to find new jobs in tech. We are growing in size and organizational capacity.

Our journey continues.

Tech Fleet is in the process of improving its processes and programs. Together we’ll make progress toward our goals.

In forming a nonprofit, we realized that Tech Fleet is much more than a job-training program. We seek to be so much more for the world.

Our New Mission

We are the change that tech needs for the future.

We are changing what a career in tech can be. We, as a community, know that what counts isn’t a fancy resume or credentials, it’s the value we can provide to the world at large and the way we work together.

In Tech Fleet, our projects make a real difference to real people. Our work benefits the nonprofits that Tech Fleet partners with, and helps us experience work that matters.. Tech Fleet teams get real-world team experience making products and being part of our peer-driven community.

We don’t just want our alumni to get jobs. We want them to embody a change in the way they develop tech. We want leaders who recognize the need to question assumptions in tech today. We want people who focus on the growth of others around them. We want to work together, as a community.

Our grads can make technology more responsible and community-informed. We can bring more people into tech who have historically been excluded and leverage their leadership skills. Together we can create more career opportunities through collaborative entrepreneurship and successful tech for good.

Principles

Our mission statement reflects these important principles, which form the expanded version of our mission statement:

We remove barriers to access

Anyone who is willing to put in the commitment and to come with a learner’s mind is welcome here.

We operate with high responsibility

Everyone practices steward leadership, from day one in Tech Fleet. Teams are empowered. Decisions are made with the community. We work in solidarity, not charity.

We orient around service

We work together to support the success and growth of our teams and community

We are community-driven

We are a collective of leaders who contribute to the plans, processes, and projects that make up Tech Fleet

We practice continuous improvement

We teach with agile philosophies in mind and in practice. We are constantly looking for ways to deliver more value to ourselves, our teams, our clients, and our community.

We collaborate

We work together to make products, grow our collective power, and serve our common goals. We index highly on working together, not doing things alone or unilaterally.

What tech been for the last 20 years

• People coming into tech have to have special credentials which are often associated with institutions and organizations that are overpopulated with people with high-status identities
• Bootcamps, certification programs, and schools promise entry into tech work but people who are hiring for tech roles look for experience working in teams, which demonstrates the capacity to work with others, solve problems together, and understand how to deliver value to real customers or clients
• A lot of workplaces in tech require “code switching,” needing to abandon aspects of oneself to “fit in” and “be professional” in ways that often are biased
• A lot of tech workplaces treat workers as ‘resources’ that they own through their employment, and require overtaxing schedules, and always-available channels of communication, but also have no qualms about laying people off whenever it seems financially advantageous
• People who work in tech are encouraged to be competitive with one another for the benefit of their employers
• A lot of work in tech supports industries of exploitation and extraction that actually harm us and the communities where we come from
• Tech built by people to extract value from “users” often does not serve our human needs

We are changing how tech can work and how we work in tech

• We work together on technology that benefits the world and our communities
• We do not need to come from backgrounds with access to wealth or power to have careers in tech
• Like the people who use technology, we are the global majority, women, LGBTQAI+, global, from any different cultures, and socio-economic backgrounds, and using many languages
• We work with service mindsets that allow us to develop meaningful relationships with our teams, clients, and people who use our products
• We bring our lived experience into our work
• We solve problems in collaboration
• We share our knowledge and expertise with others
• We mentor and guide people in areas where we have more experience, and are open to guidance in areas where we’re still learning
• We believe in our fundamental ability to commit to our learning, to one another, and to the people who our products serve
• We contribute to a global community of tech professionals because we matter to one another and to the world we want to live in
• We don’t give our dignity away just to get a paycheck