Education, Training, and Mentoring

The TAMMI intends to accomplish much of its purpose at the base level by providing education, training, and mentoring to citizens of the South Bronx community. Initially, the TAMMI intends to host seminars to equip persons with the skills and tools necessary for using and developing creative technology. These seminars would cover a wide variety of topics, including free workshops explaining and teaching such things as webpage publishing, creating ebay or paypal accounts, and how to run an internet-based business.

In addition to providing live seminars, much of the same material will eventually be made available on the TAMMI’s website. Whether through step-by-step written instruction or streaming video, the information and training presented at the seminars will be made available electronically to a wide audience of persons who can access such material at the TAMMI’s website address. Eventually, the TAMMI might provide interactive online content, whereby the website visitor could interact and receive real-time assistance from a volunteer of the TAMMI.

Further, the TAMMI intends to publish a collection of its seminars and educational materials in traditional print format. This format will allow non-internet users, as well as internet users who prefer to have a bound print copy of many of the important topics covered during live and online seminars, to have a readily accessible collection of valuable and informative materials.

In time, when the TAMMI acquires a larger space in which to run its operations, it anticipates having walk-in assistance available during normal business hours, in addition to the regularly scheduled seminars and training sessions it performs. People could visit the TAMMI’s offices and receive one-on-one assistance on either a first-come, first-served basis or by appointment.

The TAMMI intends to have primarily a volunteer staff conduct its seminars and training. Initially this will be a small staff, composed of the TAMMI’s founders and experienced persons in the creative technology industry. Among the volunteers the TAMMI anticipates having in the future are persons who benefit from the TAMMI's assistance and who ultimately become successful and gain valuable knowledge that can be shared with others. In this way the TAMMI will be able to regenerate and infuse itself with new volunteers and benefit from the most current expertise and real-world experience in the creative technology industry.

The purpose behind the education, training, and mentoring program is to provide people with the basic skills and tools necessary to succeed in creative technology. A difficulty experienced by persons in many communities is that they do not know where to begin, for they have had little contact with persons who have had much entrepreneurial success. By providing persons with the basic knowledge required to develop further their creative and technical ideas and skills, the TAMMI aims to prepare people to move their ideas forward. The TAMMI’s activities in this area further its exempt purpose by equipping persons in the South Bronx with the abilities necessary to contribute positively toward the development of the local economic community.

Entrepreneurial Assistance and Incubation

The TAMMI intends to provide assistance on a more advanced level, by helping entities develop and run successfully. The TAMMI will provide incubation resources and services, such as office space and information technology, financial, marketing, and sales assistance, as well as strategic guidance, opportunities for capital growth, networking, and business planning.

The TAMMI intends to assist small developing businesses in the South Bronx overcome common hurdles that prevent such businesses from becoming successful. Such hurdles include a lack of financing, office space, infrastructure support, and information technology, as well as a lack of knowledgeable direction, sound business strategy, capital growth, and networking capabilities. The TAMMI can help entities overcome these hurdles in a variety of ways, including the following:

• Providing office space;

• Providing conference rooms, reception staff, support staff, and information technology equipment and staff, to be shared in common by the various entities provided incubation assistance by the TAMMI;

• Providing strategic guidance, advice, and business-modeling assistance;

• Introducing the entities’ founders to sources of capital throughout the community and beyond, thus helping create a communal network of entrepreneurs and financial investors.

The TAMMI will provide its services through volunteers as well as support staff employees. The volunteers will be charged primarily with guiding the entities through the development and business planning stages, and introducing the entities’ founders to investors and helping them make connections in their particular industries. Full-time support staff employees will be responsible for providing infrastructure-related assistance, including reception, administrative and office support, and information technology services.