Technologists for Global Transformation
The Technologists for Global Transformation program (formerly the Associate Product Manager program, or APM) develops and deploys an exceptional network of early career technologists to solve systemic global challenges for public benefit.
Overview
Technologists will benefit from an accelerated career development opportunity through high-leverage projects, exposure to problems in different domains, and connections with an unmatched network of peers and mentors working at the intersection of tech and impact. The program is designed to broaden the pool of technologists working for public benefit, and as a result, address systemic and interconnected ecological and socio-economic challenges.
Program Tracks
The TGT program will consist of technologists in two specific tracks that reflect in-demand skill sets in the tech and impact ecosystem.
These are the (i) engineering track and the (ii) product track, with a focus on service delivery in nonprofits and government. Over the course of two years, technologists will rotate among a range of impact projects, operating with ownership and autonomy while learning from mentors at Schmidt Futures, other Schmidt Family-related organizations, and external partners.
Engineering
Engineering technologists will work in small teams and drive tangible impact through delivering software solutions that address complex societal challenges. Key responsibilities will include evaluating technical architecture with other engineers, building customer software applications, and developing technical strategies with other team members
Engineers who join this team are entrepreneurial technologists early in their careers who are eager to change the world.
Product
In collaboration with teammates who have expertise ranging from policy and international relations to data science and education, product technologists will build products that leverage technology to further Schmidt Futures’ goals and benefit society.
Product Managers “graduate” with a range of technical, soft and leadership skills which equip them to manage teams in product or product-adjacent roles, found companies as entrepreneurs, and create impact in a variety of leadership roles.
Our program empowers each Product Manager with a toolkit that will allow them to craft a unique journey and become catalysts of change in the impact sector.
What you'll gain
Project leadership skills
- You will be asked to collaborate with internal and external teams;
- You will develop in-demand hard and soft skills including core tech and leadership skills;
- You will be offered mentorship and coaching;
- You will learn on-the-job via rotational experiences;
- You will develop strong bonds and networks within and across cohorts
A community of like-minded technologists
Be part of our community helping us to shape the future of the Technologists for Global Transformation program, mentor the next cohort.
Our impact
The Technologists for Global Transformation program’s impact in the world includes:
What Qualities Do We Look For?
Customer empathy
Demonstrates compassion. Gets to know the end users well in order to help understand problems and create the most personalized impact.
Ownership attitude
Eager to do whatever needs to be done to get a product out into the world, forging trust with teammates through humility and hard work. Drives team success through effective time management.
Requesting a TGT Placement
If your organization could benefit from a technologist to solve hard problems in science and society, please fill out the following form, which requests responses to the following questions:
- What problem (or problems) could a technologist tackle at your organization in a reasonable time, such as 6 months? Please describe one or two examples. How would you imagine a technologist spending a day at your organization?
- Do you have a technical team? Give us a brief overview of their roles (e.g. “1 front-end engineer, 1 DevOps engineer, 1 designer, 1 product manager”).
- Within your organization, who could serve as a dedicated mentor to the TGT?
Our exceptional TGTs are matched on a rolling basis. We may want to meet with you before a placement decision is made. The sooner your organization is able to share this information, the better!
Technologists for Global Transformation 2023 Cohort
Annie Snyder
Annie Snyder will earn her B.S. in Computer Science and Economics in 2023. She has previously worked as a data science intern on the Facebook Responsible AI team and as a PM intern for Microsoft’s AI Development Program. She’s currently working with MIT’s Center for Advanced Urbanism on two community co-design projects, and with MIT’s AI Policy Forum on social media regulation.
Jason Loi
Jason Loi will earn his bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering with a focus on AI and engineering leadership at the University of Toronto in May 2023. Most recently he held a product management internship at Electronic Arts and founded a start-up to help small businesses reduce their shipping costs.
Prapthi Agarwala
Prapthi Agarwala is in her senior year at Western University pursuing a dual-degree in Computer Science and Business Administration with a sustainability certificate. She has held a product management internship at Tesla and Baaz, a high growth startup. She is also the lead for the sustainability accelerator program at her university.
Ryan Gajarawala
Ryan Gajarawala will earn his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a minor in Mandarin Chinese from Harvard University in 2022. He has held two product management internships at Microsoft and Patronage.org and served as a software engineering intern at SoundHound.
Sara Komaiha
Sara Komaiha will be graduating from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a secondary in Global Health and Health Policy this upcoming May. She recently completed a product management internship with Expedia Group and a public service internship with the Michigan Department of State.
Somil Aggarwal
Somil Aggarwal will earn his honors bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with a Business minor from Cornell University in December 2022. He founded an agtech startup improving recordkeeping for small farms, held a SWE internship at PayPal, and traveled to Kenya to study agtech startup innovation.
Alexis Mack
Alexis Mack will earn her bachelor’s degree in computer science and political science with a concentration in artificial intelligence from Stanford University. She has held a software engineering internship at Microsoft and served as a data science analyst at D.E. Shaw & Co.
Technologists for Global Transformation 2022 Cohort
Alanna Flores
Alanna is pursuing an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering and a B.S. in Computer Science, concentrating in Artificial Intelligence and minoring in Human Rights at Stanford University.
She has worked as a data science intern at Recidiviz and a software engineering intern at The Washington Post and Accountability Counsel.
Anmolpreet Kandola
Anmolpreet Kandola graduated from Columbia University in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.
Currently with Amazon, he is a Software Development Engineer who works on the global catalog infrastructure. He has conducted computational neuroscience research at Stanford and interned as a backend engineer at Tagup, an IoT startup.
Catherine Zhang
Catherine Zhang will graduate from Cornell University in December 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Sociology.
She was previously a technical program management intern at Uber and a product management intern at two different startups.
Daniel Schwartz
Daniel Schwartz will obtain his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with minors in Software Engineering and Finance from McGill University in April 2022.
Daniel is currently a program manager intern at Tesla, he has previously held roles in product management, strategy, and finance.
Kyle Barnes
Kyle Barnes is the co-founder and Executive Director of Representable, a nonprofit community mapping startup that fights gerrymandering.
He will earn his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with a focus on Human-Computer Interaction from Princeton University in May of 2022.
Mia Jackson
Mia earned her bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics from Yale University in 2021. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree at University College London studying the influence of urban design decisions on health and educational outcomes using data science techniques.
She was previously a Data Science Fellow for Code2040 and worked at Access Health Connecticut and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Mikey Abela
Mikey Abela will receive a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with pathways in Visual Computing and Design from Brown University in May 2022.
He has previously worked as a software engineer intern, focused on frontend web development, at Microsoft and the New York Times.
Sahana Srinivasan
Sahana Srinivasan will earn her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with a minor in Government from Harvard College in 2022.
She interned in product management and software engineering roles at Microsoft and has served as a teaching assistant and the editor of a data journalism publication in college.
Siddhartha Bose
Siddhartha Bose earned his bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Economics from the University of California Los Angeles in 2019.
He is currently a Software Engineer and Technician in the Singapore Armed Forces and previously worked as a Cybertechnology Product Specialist at Darktrace.
Swathi Ramprasad
Swathi Ramprasad is currently an Eisenhower Scholar at the University of Oxford, where she will complete an MPP in 2022.
She graduated from Duke in 2021 with a double major in Computer Science and Public Policy. She has held a software engineering internship at Facebook’s Civic Integrity team and served as a policy intern at the ACLU of Pennsylvania.
Questions?
If you have any questions, please reach out to us at tgtplacement@schmidtfutures.com
