The Palisadoes Foundation

What We Do:

Since 2016, the Palisadoes Foundation has been promoting equitable access to life opportunities for STEM education recipients. Our annual internship programs match university students with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) professionals as they collaborate on Open Source software projects. 

The Mission:

We promote software engineering education internships for university students in under-served communities. 

• Our demographic focus is on Black, Brown, Latinx and indigenous groups. 
• Our geographic focus is on the North American and the Caribbean regions.
• We aim to cover all our operating costs through revenue generated by our software projects.

Our History:

Palisadoes was created by a group of expatriate Jamaican information and communication technology (ICT) professionals. They wanted to assist the continued development of new and existing technologies for the benefit of the island. 

The Foundation quickly realized that there was universal need for these services in underserved North American communities where the Jamaican diaspora live. We have expanded our service region to include them.

The ICT sector is a dynamic, growing, and critical international industry that can provide significant financial growth and opportunity for these communities. Our internship programs provide equitable access for local ICT professionals to globally compete. 

We started in 2016, with a pilot internship program in Jamaican universities where academic and student leadership wanted greater practical exposure to the latest technology in solving issues graduates would face when employed. 

After five years of success, we expanded the program to the USA. The digital divide in education is very visible in the San Francisco metropolitan area where we are based. We feel that our experience in the developing world will be useful in aiding this community too.