WASHINGTON—Raymond E. Bell, Jr., founder of tech industry’s renowned H.O.P.E. Project DC, is the President of National BDPA’s Greater Washington, D.C. Chapter (BDPA DC) who presented this year’s President’s Awards for 2023 to the following distinguished technical professionals:

• Krystle Irby
• Dominique Meriedy
• Thaddeus Miller
• Mike Payne
• Ricardo Stepney

The association’s 45th anniversary holiday soirée and awards ceremony was hosted in Washington, D.C., at Samsung’s Executive Briefing Center (EBC) on Capitol Hill.

As a social entrepreneur, keynote speaker and facilitator, Mr. Bell is devoted to teaching and coaching young adults on how to become I.T. professionals. Through his workshops, courses, mentoring, and coaching programs, Mr. Bell shows young adults how to get out of unemployment lines and onto exciting tech industry career paths.

Raymond’s passion is to empower young people to take ownership and control of their own destiny. In 2009, Mr. Bell founded The H.O.P.E. Project, also known as the “Harvard of the Hood”, an I.T. career training program. The H.O.P.E. Project has been called one of the best I.T. career training programs in the country by the President of the Help Desk Institute (HDI). Graduates earn an average annual salary north of $60,000 working on major government contracts with agency mission-partners such as CACI; Lockheed Martin; Octo, an IBM Company; and World Bank. Nearly 40 HOPE Project graduates have accepted salaries of $100,000 or more.

Mr. Bell is considered one of the leading experts in I.T. career training and workforce development in the United States. Mr. Bell has received numerous awards for his work including the a HDI Top 25 Thought Leader, BDPA Member of the Year, National Black Caucus of State Legislators, Nation Builder Award Recipient, for his outstanding work developing world class I.T. professionals.

In 2021, Mr. Bell launched www.hopeprojectonline.com to help over 1,000 people launch their careers in Information Technology (IT). Mr. Bell has been featured on ABC, CBS, WHUR, NewOne Now, Bloomberg News, the Washington Post, National Public Radio (NPR), National Journal, BET and several other media outlets.

About BDPA DC

Founded in 1977, National BDPA’s Greater Washington, D.C. Chapter (BDPA DC) was chartered by BDPA in 1978. Established in Philadelphia, PA as Black Data Processing Associates, BDPA (BDPA.org) is the premier organization focused on nurturing and developing diverse working professionals and future IT leaders across Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) industries and all digital technology fields. For almost 50 years, BDPA has enabled the upward mobility of African Americans and other minorities in Information Technology (IT) and STEM fields since 1975.

^{— Cover photo ©2023 by Nicole Spriggs • HOPE Project DC • bdpatoday®}  

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