EduCon 2018

Chelsey is the president and co-founder of Emerging Leaders in Technology and Engineering, Inc. (ELiTE). ELiTE was founded after an inspirational trip to Ghana when Chelsey and classmates from Columbia Engineering facilitated a hands-on summer camp focusing on sustainable technologies. Over the next few years the summer camps grew from the classrooms of a rural village in Ghana to a primary school in Tanzania and university campuses in Ghana, Jamaica, and Mexico offering workshops and trainings in everything from software development and robotics to ecology and astronomy. Since graduating with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University in 2010, Chelsey has worked in Harlem for the Abyssinian Development Corporation and with the Columbia University School of Social Work to coordinate a dropout prevention program at one of America’s lowest performing high schools. Through his work in Harlem, Chelsey has seen the need for quality STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) programming as a means to close the achievement gap and provide economic opportunities for black men and boys is the 21st century global economy.