Fresno, Calif., April 5, 2021 – Today, Bitwise Industries (www.bitwiseindustries.com) announced the strategic hire of Laura Maristany as the Director of External Affairs. Bitwise Industries leverages private/public partnerships to develop a skilled and representative workforce through tech apprenticeships.

Laura will help advance our goals by influencing policy designed to lift people out of systemic poverty, provide access to tech training and create professional opportunities in underdog cities. We are excited to welcome someone as decorated as Laura to join our fight to develop a representative technology workforce through public/private partnerships and earn-while-you-learn apprenticeships.

Jake Soberal, CEO and co-founder, Bitwise Industries

Laura has extensive Capitol Hill and policy making experience having served as chief federal advocate and Director of the Washington, D.C. office for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) and as Executive Director of Legislative Affairs for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU). She has played a key role in developing and implementing more inclusive legislative agendas and developing relations with Congress, the Administration, federal agencies, and other national and international organizations.

Most recently, Laura has served as the Associate Director for Constructive Politics at Democracy Fund. In that role, Laura developed and carried out investment strategies to explore what unites people, while helping governing institutions become more diverse, inclusive, and better able to serve all Americans. She also helped launch Representative Democracy and other startups like the Women’s Public Leadership Network.

This experience will assist Bitwise as it seeks to pay people to learn tech skills, connect them to meaningful employment opportunities, and create vibrant communities in underestimated cities across the country. Laura will help Bitwise upskill more disenfranchised people, and empower them to change their own lives — which ignites and transforms the regional economies of the cities Bitwise serves.

The company has trained more than 5,000 people with 80-percent earning technical employment and many previously earning under $21K/year after earning $60K/year. The tech workforce produced by Bitwise is 55-percent Latinx, and greater than 40-percent LGBTQ+.

About Bitwise Industries

Bitwise Industries creates a bridge between humans from marginalized communities and stories of systemic poverty to skills and resources necessary to access opportunities in the tech industry. By leveraging public-private partnerships, Bitwise provides paid apprenticeships to students to learn tech skills, connects them to meaningful tech opportunities, and builds vibrant buildings in underestimated cities to house their work. By upskilling disenfranchised humans, it empowers them to change their own lives—which ignites and transforms the regional economies of the cities in which Bitwise serves.

Bitwise has raised more than $100M in support of this important work; expanded its model to serve five cities (Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced, Oakland, and Toledo); and built a tech apprenticeship engine that will drive national jobs/economic recovery in 2021. To learn more about Bitwise Industries, check out www.bitwiseindustries.com.