Sixto Cancel

Champions for young adults in foster care say that as many as 18,000 could age out of the system next week when a federal moratorium expires.

On Thursday, March 19, Jerry Milner of the federal Children’s Bureau is teaming up with former foster youth and tech entrepreneur Sixto Cancel to co-host a virtual town hall inviting foster youth to contribute to the fight against the coronavirus. 

After launching at the White House and building steam in New York City, the intersection of tech and foster care has made it to the mother ship in northern California. Yesterday kicked off the two-day Silicon Valley Hack Foster Care Summit, the latest event in a growing movement to the foster care and technology communities together to hack the system.

For the past five years, the Obama administration has honored more than 1,300 ordinary citizens who drove positive changes every day in their communities with a “Champions of Change,” (COC) award.

Early next year, when it hosts its own “Hack Foster Care Summit,” Silicon Valley will pick up the baton in the third leg of what is becoming a national effort to better use technology to improve the lives of children and youth in foster care.

In May, a couple hundred technologists, child welfare experts and foster youth gathered on the grounds of the White House for the first foster care hackathon to reach such national prominence.

On Saturday night, two fast rising former foster youth put their stamp on child welfare leadership by pulling off a near flawless online town hall in support of Hillary Clinton. In a Richmond, Virginia office space hastily re-configured into a T.V.

Updated: On November 5, Lexie Gruber co-hosted an online Town Hall with Anne Holton. As the wife of Vice Presidential Candidate Tim Kaine, Holton is poised to play a key role in child welfare policy if Hillary Clinton prevails in Tuesday’s election.