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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:
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. Background
Research has shown that the way to expand neighborhoods is not just through the creation of more office space, but with development from the ground up, with arts, technology, and culture as a base. Among a creative economy’s (creative-based economic clusters that attract dynamic and diverse pools of workers) greatest strengths is the ability to attract other businesses and jump-start neighborhood development. Arts and culture do this by giving local economies a sense of soul. And this is everything, given that “knowledge workers” and “cultural creatives”—-an influential group that runs from playwrights and museum curators to software designers and financial analysts—-demand vibrant and dynamic settings in which they can work, live and create.
Economic development and the digital divide go hand-in-hand for many reasons. Communities with the tools and skills to compete in the digital economy are at a distinct advantage over communities that don't. In many ways, the situation in a given community can build upon itself, for better or for worse. A community with a well-educated, technology-literate population is more likely to attract and sustain new businesses, and these new businesses in turn attract more well-educated, technology-literate people into the area. Conversely, a community that lacks reliable access to technology and the skills to use it is less likely to attract and sustain new businesses that could potentially serve as a catalyst to economic prosperity. Simply put, if communities are to remain competitive in attracting, retaining and developing businesses in today's economy, they must develop modern telecommunications facilities and cultivate a well-trained workforce to stay viable.
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