Combating Teen Homelessness In NYC With Technology Top IT Experts Team Up to Educate Teens in Foster Care

The statistics are alarming. Eighty percent of homeless people in NYC were formerly in the foster care system.� When a foster-care youth reaches the age of 18 and has not been adopted, they "age out" of the system and are essentially abandoned and completely unprepared to be on their own. Almost universally, they have minimal education, very high dropout rates, absolutely no parental or adult guidance, no life skills, no qualifications, and no living arrangements. �

That's why the Techie Youth Foundation's Founder and President Eric David Benari is on a mission. He's teamed up with other experts in the field to provide free IT education to any youth of employable age in the foster-care system to help combat homelessness.

"It is never the kids' fault they are in the foster-care system. Most of them enter the system due to severe parental abuse or extreme neglect," said Benari. "Kids who don't enter the Techie Youth program and age-out of care are likely to become incarcerated within 18-24 months. Many will become homeless, and nearly half of all females will become pregnant within one year. Any of the students who participate in the program could within a very short time be earning much more than what is required to live adequately."

After five months of classes, the Techie Youth Foundation is proud to announce they recently celebrated their first graduating class at the Microsoft Store on 5th Avenue.

David Benari, PMP, is the Founder & President of Techie Youth. He is an IT business expert and master-technologist who has founded and/or built the infrastructure for a large portfolio of ventures, spanning sectors of social networks, e-commerce, B2B, open-source, online advertising (while in a senior-role at Yahoo!) and others. Benari has been invited to speak at numerous conferences and universities, including NYU and MIT, and is a published writer for Forbes and MIT CIO Corner, to name a few. Benari� is also the Chairman/Coordinator/Organizer of the world's largest community of database-technology professionals.