MERCEDES, Texas - Felida Villarreal, president and CEO of Valley Initiative for Development and Advancement, has been featured in Hispanic Executive magazine due to her group’s interactions with the Open AI Foundation.
The article's headline is: "VIDA Lands OpenAI Fopundation Grant to Prepare Learners for the Future."
VIDA is now in its 30th year and has helped over 7,000 students achieve educational success to secure better-paying jobs. VIDA provides holistic support to students, including childcare, transportation, and counseling.
As first reported in the RGG Business Journal, VIDA has been selected as a grantee of the OpenAI Foundation’s People-First AI Fund. The California based tech giant awarded $40.5 million to 200 organizations across the country. VIDA was one of the few Texas-based entities to receive a grant - $250,000.
“VIDA was one of the few organizations outside of California to make the cut. The South Texas-centered workforce nonprofit works with a majority Hispanic, binational population, and may not come to mind as the first nonprofit to implement AI innovation,” Hispanic Executive reporter Billy Yost wrote.
“I think the organizations that are going to be best served by this grant are the ones who are willing to think differently and openly about how to serve their bases best,” Villarreal told Yost. “This grant is not just going to allow us to continue serving our mission, but to expand some of our programs that have specific AI components.”
In a new video interview with the RGG Business Journal, Villarreal said:
“It is extremely rewarding for us to be recognized, that they put their trust and belief in us as one of the grantees. They believe we have an impactful program.
“The grant just started at the beginning of this year. So, we’re a few months in and very excited to continue expanding educational opportunities for our students. We want to make sure our students are prepared for a workforce that's ever changing, and that is now heavily being impacted by AI.”
It was put to Villarreal that she surely could never have imagined being recognized by a group as big as Open AI. She responded: “I would have never imagined that we could have reached this capacity and this growth so fast. I mean, we've had very ambitious goals, but to actually start meeting these goals and these benchmarks has just been very exciting and very rewarding, because, at the end of the day, it’s about our people, our community, and the families that we're helping, and so that's very, very inspiring.”
One of the neat aspects of the grant is being able to interact with other grantees, Villarreal said.
“One of the great advantages and support systems that the Opan AI Foundation has incorporated into the grant project is being able to connect with our fellow grantees. And so there's a couple that we've had a chance to meet over Zoom with. I believe one of them is out of New York. We're all doing different things and different initiatives. So this one in particular is really focused on building AI technologies, different applications to help businesses, organizations, in various industries, to become more efficient and to help them build capacity. So we have had follow-up conversations to see how we can now leverage that type of technology to help us internally as an organization, to help us continue to grow. We also want to use this AI technology to improve the user experience that the potential applicant currently sees on our website. So, there are just a lot of great opportunities.”
In addition to bringing the RGG Business Journal up to speed on VIDA’s Open AI Foundation grant, Villarreal also spoke about a great the group has just received from Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas.
“We're actually very excited. We were just notified this past week of another exciting grant award. This one is from Methodist healthcare ministries based out of San Antonio. And so they just notified us about a two-year award, $150,000 per year, for a total $300,000. This will be used to continue expanding our efforts in the healthcare industry and providing that strong talent pipeline of healthcare workers that are in a huge demand. There is a huge shortage, not just across the RGV, but across the country.”
Asked how long VIDA has been working with MHM, Villarreal said: “They've actually grown to be a very strong supporter of ours over the years. We've had a relationship with them over the past three or four years, and we continue to build upon that relationship. I think they've been very pleased with our outcomes and just very supportive of our impact in the communities here in the RGV.”
In the interview, Villarreal also spoke about VIDA’s work with UnidosUS, the largest Latino civil rights organization in the country. She also spoke about VIDA’s 30th Anniversary and how she landed her special guest for the 30th Anniversary gala - Matamoros/Brownsville-raised billionaire Fernando De Leon.
Here is the interview:
