Latest news with #GabrielaRivera
Technical.ly
21-02-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
This Spanish-language startup program is breaking down barriers for immigrant entrepreneurs
This piece is also available in Spanish, thanks to translation services by Gabriela Rivera, digital communications manager at Resolve Philly. A Spanish-language entrepreneurship program is helping business-minded immigrants build wealth, despite social and economic challenges. One of the biggest challenges for immigrant entrepreneurs looking to start a business in their new hometown is learning how to do it right. Add in a language barrier, and building a business — one that pays required taxes and serves as an important part of a region's economic development — can be tough to manage. '[Immigrant] entrepreneurs want to comply with the regulations and get their licenses,' Liliana Quintero, chair of the Delaware Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and head of its Emprendedores Sin Barreras acceleration program, told General business resources are not in short supply, but many are in English exclusively, and even if materials are bilingual, general entrepreneur programs may not offer an understanding of specific issues facing immigrants, from navigating documentation status to re-learning how to run a business when regulations in their origin country differed greatly. 'The rules [in the US] are totally different from in our countries,' Quintero said. 'All the things that you need to learn to start and formalize a business are new.' Fulfilling a need Emprendedores Sin Barreras (Entrepreneurs Without Barriers) was launched as the signature program of the Delaware Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. In March 2024, the Chamber was established by president and CEO, Ronaldo Tello, Quintero and others with an interest in serving the local Hispanic community. The program, and the Chamber itself, represent two of the things the 47th presidential administration opposes the most: Immigration, especially from below the southern border, and diversity, equity and inclusion. Quintero, who came to the United States from Colombia a decade ago, has been working with entrepreneurs in the region since 2016 when she started as a volunteer with the Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. A couple of years ago, she and Tello noticed a gap in Spanish-language entrepreneurial services in Delaware as its Hispanic immigrant population grew. The first Emprendedores Sin Barreras pilot launched in 2023, a few months before the Delaware Hispanic Chamber was established. Their instincts had been correct: The first cohort, offered for both established and aspiring entrepreneurs, easily drew 20 people; the second, in 2024, drew 35. 'From the beginning, all of the people were engaged,' Quintero said. 'We discovered all the resources that our entrepreneurs need, in Spanish.' At the end of each cohort, participants deliver a business pitch, an exercise Quintero says helps to improve their public speaking and social skills, 'I have a student [who] says she was very grateful because presenting her business gave her the confidence to talk in public.' Leveling up With two successful introductory cohorts under its belt, Emprendedores Sin Barreras launched a level two cohort, a business accelerator for entrepreneurs with established businesses. At this level, the entrepreneurs learn how to work with community development financial institutions (CDFIs), which provide loans and financial services to underserved communities, including immigrant communities, that are considered to be too high risk to do business with by most traditional financial institutions. Even with a CDFI, entrepreneurs need to learn how to navigate the process to get a loan. 'If you are an entrepreneur looking for funds, you need to be able to answer the very first question that the banker is asking you: 'how much do you need?'' Quintero said. 'Most of the entrepreneurs, they don't know. So the objective of this program is to have a business plan that will answer that question.' The more than 50 entrepreneurs who have gone through the program so far represent a cross-section of industries. Restaurants and landscaping are both popular businesses for Hispanic immigrants, Quintero says, but so are technology startups such as web services, social media management and IT. 'Design services, real estate and printing on merchandise are very popular as well,' she said. Facing uncertainties ahead So far in 2025, Emprendedores Sin Barreras is going strong, despite a climate of anti-immigrant policy and mass deportation. 'People are afraid,' Quintero acknowledged. 'There's fear in terms and the uncertainty about what is happening and who is affected. 'The reality is, organizations like us, and Chambers of Commerce in general, are aimed to promote the correct way to do things. We are here to help people to be more productive, to be a good asset to the economy.'
Technical.ly
17-02-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Philadelphia's open data effort may be losing momentum, but OpenDataPhilly isn't giving up
This article is a part of Every Voice, Every Vote, a collaborative project managed by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism with lead support from the William Penn Foundation, and additional funding from Lenfest, Comcast NBC Universal, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Henry L. Kimelman Family Foundation, Judy and Peter Leone, Arctos Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, 25th Century Foundation, Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation and Philadelphia Health Partnership. This article was created independently of the project's donors. This piece is also available in Spanish, thanks to translation services by Gabriela Rivera, digital communications manager at Resolve Philly. If you want to easily sift through years of Philly campaign finance data or see a map of all the nearest athletic fields, the city's open data visualization tools make it easy. However, a quick dig around OpenDataPhilly, one of the platforms where the city publishes its data, shows some obvious weak spots. Some sources get updated regularly, while others like Police Advisory Commission complaints haven't been touched in years. The city says it's working to make the data updating process more seamless with automated systems and more dashboards to display information. The people behind OpenDataPhilly, a volunteer-run platform that collects open datasets across Philly into one place, say the open data ecosystem faces slowing enthusiasm from the city as administrations change. 'There is essentially still a motivation for the city to maintain open datasets,' Robert Cheetham, 'godfather of open data' and OpenDataPhilly volunteer, told 'But I don't think there's the same kind of energy, commitment [and] resources.' The city established its open data program in 2012 after Mayor Michael Nutter issued an executive order. The initial goal was to publish city datasets in an open data portal, hire a chief data officer, establish an open data working group and appoint a data governance advisory board. The executive order also called for an open government plan. Within a year, the city achieved six out of 10 of its original goals. However, open data has not been as much of a priority for the last few mayors, Cheetham said, and the movement lost some of its energy. By 2019, some of these initiatives, like the OpenDataPhilly platform, remained strong, while others like the working groups and advisory boards had fizzled out. Lack of requirements and automation slow public releases The city hasn't given up on the program, though. It still has a chief data officer, Tim Haynes, and the program still has a system for updating its data with a focus on turning the data into digestible and usable resources, Kistine Carolan, senior program manager with the Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT), told Without a specific requirement for city departments to provide updates to data, though, there's a lot of variance, despite years of progress. Frequency depends on the capacity of each city department, Carolan said. 'The sharing of open data has become more of a habit for city departments as part of their process of having data that they're using internally,' Carolan said. 'That's really exciting because often we have been approaching open data with a more holistic model of sharing the datasets themselves.' Still, the system for updating open data isn't as automated as it could be, she added. To combat this, OIT is in the process of moving its central data warehouse to a new version of data integration service, Data Bridge. This shift will hopefully lead to updated data at a faster pace, she said. Leaving more time for staff to work on projects that present that data in useful ways. 'We're pretty excited about that process both for allowing fresher data publicly, but also for freeing our staff to be able to engage in more projects like these dashboards or applications,' Carolan said. OIT helps make tools like the Campaign Finance Dashboard, which comes from the Board of Ethics and presents visualizations of data from campaign finance reports. The dashboard also links out to the metadata and the raw version of that data on OpenDataPhilly. Another use for the data is 'finder apps,' which help people find resources around the city like primary care providers and recycling centers, Carolan said. The free meal finder app presents an interactive map where people can look up locations for food and meal sites throughout the city, for example. 'It gives an immediate resource to people who just want to explore the data for general trends,' she said. From datasets to dashboards that the public can understand Once OIT has updated data, staff publishes it to various platforms within the hour, Haynes, geographic information officer and chief data officer, told The data is published through Data Bridge to two software platforms where OIT hosts APIs, ArcGIS Online and Carto. Those platforms are posted to the OpenDataPhilly website, the city's metadata catalog, and the Philadelphia website along with its applications, Haynes said From there, the data is available for use by students, journalists, researchers and other residents for projects on anything from voter turnout maps to sharing information about gun violence in the city. OIT then works with city departments to turn their data into interactive dashboards and applications so it's easier to understand. Having open data available is important to transparency and supports city residents working on private data-related projects, but also to improve internal operations and make city services accessible, Carolan said. 'Creating an interactive dashboard where people can explore the data, particularly if there's spatial information related to where they live or where they're working, really allows a broader audience to engage with this data and use it in meaningful ways,' Carolan said. A focus on usability, not just transparency, for the project's next upgrade OIT put out a survey to residents in 2020 to get a better understanding of how people use the open datasets and what challenges they have. In response, it developed an open data dashboard in 2021 to track the metrics around datasets that have been shared publicly. 'You'll see a list of datasets and shows when they were last updated, and if there's a visualization available,' Carolan said. '[It] helps people get a better sense of when something was last updated. That was one of the major pieces of feedback.' The dashboard currently says there have been 552 datasets released, but this includes multiple versions of previously released data. There are also 142 automated datasets and 179 datasets with visualizations. Overall, the city's open data structure has become more 'holistic,' Carolan said. Not only is the data available, but they are working to present it in a useful way that will hopefully improve resident experiences. 'More and more we're being approached by departments themselves who want to build these dashboards,' Carolan said. 'They want to do that both to have transparency about their work, but also they are able to use it more.' Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Yahoo
3 arrested on stolen vehicle charges in Waterbury
WATERBURY, Conn. (WTNH) — Three people were arrested in connection to a stolen car in Waterbury, police said. Police said they located a stolen 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLE 350 on Thursday parked in the area of Union Street. Meriden woman accused of stealing merchandise with juvenile in Stop & Shop had loaded gun Jose Torrez, 29, of Meriden, was charged with larceny of a motor vehicle and operation of a motor vehicle without a license. He was arrested on a $10,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 6. Gabriela Rivera, 21, of Waterbury, was charged with larceny of a motor vehicle. She was released on a $1,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 6. Lamontaye Perry, 21, of Waterbury, was charged with larceny of a motor vehicle, second offense. He was on parole and was remanded to the custody of the Connecticut Department of Correction. Anyone with information related to stolen cars is asked to contact Waterbury police. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
