Boston Society of Information Managers (Boston SIM)
Boston SIM (Society of Information Managers) has donated $23K in funding to support the Boston Public School's Cyber Safety Campaign over a three-year period. In 2008, funding from Boston SIM sponsored the cyber safety educational outreach program with the Boston Public Libraries. The funds enabled TechBoston to hire four cyber mentors to conduct educational outreach activities for children and their parents at BPL branch libraries. Boston SIM continued their generous support that enabled the district to hire Cyber Safety Mentors in Summer 2008. In Summer 2009, Boston SIM funding supported an Education Pioneer graduate school intern who worked with TechBoston to develop marketing materials for the Cyber Safety in a Box project.

Bunker Hill Community College
Bunker Hill Community College has provided support for the BPS Cyber Safety Campaign since the inception of the project. Through the college's NSF grant in cyber forensics, the college has provided funding to BPS to support the development of lesson plans for the district's Acceptable Use Policy initiative. The college has also provided financial support for the printing of the cyber safety materials that are used in classrooms and in the Boston community.

Microsoft
Microsoft has provided generous financial support totaling $60K that has enabled Boston Public Schools to develop and continue to expand the Cyber Safety Campaign. Microsoft sponsored the original i-Safe tour in 2006 that introduced city officials and district administrators to the Internet safety issues. In 2007, Microsoft funding supported fourteen high school students who were hired to work on the expansion of the district's campaign. That summer, the Cyber Safety Mentors produced a multitude of products that are being used for educational purposes including a comic book, promotional materials, and a movie entitled "Jake's Cyber Adventure." In 2008, Microsoft contributed funds to hire four students to work on a cyber safety educational outreach program with the Boston Public Library. Microsoft has continued to fund the Cyber Safety Mentor program for the past two summers. The Cyber Mentors have reached over 5000 youth and families through conducting cyber safety presentations.

Verizon Foundation
The Boston Public School district will roll out the Everyone Needs to Know the AUP initiative in Fall 2010, thanks to a $15K donation from Verizon Foundation. With the increase in cyber safety issues facing students and school districts, combined with the new Massachusetts' anti-bullying law now in place, the BPS Office of Instructional and Information Technology (OIIT) decided to use the opportunity to ratchet up the focus on the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). OIIT's TechBoston unit director, Felicia Vargas, led the process to revise the Boston School district's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for computer usage in the school district. During Summer 2010, the Cyber Safety Mentors worked on developing podcasts and presentations about the district's new AUP. With Verizon's support, OIIT will hire several BPS graduates and will deploy these Verizon Cyber Mentors to conduct cyber safety presentations in BPS schools during the year. The AUP materials that the Cyber Mentors developed this summer are posted online where the teachers, parents, administrators and students can access them throughout the school year. View the materials for all grade-levels at www.bpscybersafety.org/aup.html.

The BPL (Boston Public Library) Foundation donated funding to support the Summer 2008 BPS/BPL Cyber Safety Project. The funds were used to hire Homework Assistance Program mentors to work on a Cyber Safety educational program in the Boston Public Libraries. TechBoston/BPS trained these students to be Cyber Safety Mentors. The mentors will be paired up in team and assigned to Boston Public Library branch libraries to conduct educational outreach activities for children and their parents.

BATEC (Boston Area Advanced Technological Connections) grant funds have helped to support TechBoston’s summer Tech Apprentice program that recruits and prepares students for summer internships. Many of the Cyber Safety Mentors have been hired through the Tech Apprentice program.