Immigration MIC Hendel Leiva

Hear reactions from former Immigration MIC guests Eliana Fernandez, Alejandro Flores, and Damaris!

Welcome David Silva Ossa, co-founder of Techqueria (the nonprofit that serves the largest community of Latinx in Tech) to the Immigration MIC Podcast!

[Update: Techqueria’s fundraising campaign to support undocumented families has closed at the 50K mark, but you can still donate to support the organization, or support the other campaigns on the original donation page]

In this episode, David talks to me about: how he’s been holding up in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, his personal story growing up in Santiago De Cali, Colombia at a time when Cali was one of the most dangerous cities to live in, while trying to discover his own place in society (4:31), his background in activism inspired by his Jewish faith and his status as an undocumented immigrant (16:20), his journey into the tech world originating with a computer in his mother’s office, and learning how to modify/ program, and culminated with him joining a startup in 2012 in Colombia and moving to Silicon Valley the following year (19:00), the beginnings of Techqueria and the development of the organization as a network, which has chapters in eight cities (23:50), the fundraiser and the longer term goals and vision to support undocumented communities affected by COVID-19 (26:03), and some closing forward-looking words of inspiration (31:15)