The Mission Behind Smarkle: Combatting Educational Inequity through the NFT community
Smarkle NFT, is all about spreading awareness, and closing the education gap within neuro-divergent students’ education.
Smarkle NFT project started on February 15th, 2022. The project is officially partnered with a Non-Profit organization, My First Mentor, and it working on a generative art collection to mint on the Ethereum blockchain. Smarkle is donating 40% of each NFT profit to this Non-Profit organization.
My First Mentor is a great fit for the youth to be involved in leadership, and advocacy. The non-profit caters to all students, regardless of race, religion, gender, and so on. They are helping the students who are diagnosed with ADHD, ADD, ASD, Autism, Downs Syndrome, Dyslexia, and many more. They value the community of young advocates, and strongly believe that its up to the youth to lead and educate the next generations of leaders.
Ishi Pang, the founder of Smarkle, felt so touched by this project and wanted to expand her knowledge in NFTs by giving back to the community, alongside her team member, Jeff Noriega. She started to contact the non-profit to sort out the details, and make Smarkle NFT official.
Ishi is a 16-year-old, woman in tech. She felt that it was up to her to spread that awareness, and educate others about this problem that was facing most students in her community.
“It truly broke my heart to see that these students are not receiving the same education I am, and it is hindering their ability to find a career or even pursue a higher education. There is so much stigma going around this topic, and the only way to overcome it is to show why we should care for others.”
As a developer of color, and woman in tech, she knew that empowering more students, especially women, to take a chance on the STEM career is important.
“Tech is tomorrow, and empowering the community of women in tech is important to build the foundation of the next achievers.”
Ishi and Jeff, are working on releasing the 10,000 generative collection at the beginning of April. As they grow their following, they have met creators who are on this journey with them.
Both Jeff and Ishi said:
“This is not a me project, this is a we project.”
