Minority Woman-Owned Small Business Enterprise Based in Miami

Maribel Martinez is a national social sector leader with over 25 years of experience in education management, business development and digital inclusion. She began her first career as a teacher in Miami-Dade County, Florida, after earning a B.S. in Special Education and an M.S. in Reading Education from FIU in Miami, Florida. Maribel taught students with disabilities and ELLs before transitioning to school leadership where she inducted new teachers and designed reading intervention programs for struggling secondary students as a reading specialist. Maribel's doctoral studies focused on teacher induction practices, which she leveraged to later hire staff in New York City where she co-led the debut of the first all-digital teaching platform in 29 elementary schools. After launching this transformative teaching tool, Maribel began working with a leading education management company alongside school districts, school-based leadership teams, and teachers to increase student achievement through technology integration, helping staff manage change in schools across several states. Through her work amplifying technology, Maribel took notice of the homework gap and began collaborating with nonprofit groups in New York City on digital inclusion, distributing refurbished computers to asset-limited K-8 students and their families.

Maribel launched her consulting practice in 2014 upon returning to Miami mainly working with K-12 schools supporting professional development and integrating technology. She also served as education director for a nonprofit management support 501(c)3 in Palm Beach County, Florida supporting social sector professionals in four Florida counties. When the opportunity came to serve as a regional director for a national nonprofit working to close the digital divide, she rose to the challenge.

Maribel is considered a digital inclusion expert. She has first-hand experience as a digital navigator and has collaborated with HUD-assisted housers nationally to create and implement multi-year digital equity plans. Maribel has worked with industry partners on targeted outreach campaigns around low-cost internet, affordable computers, and digital literacy training for asset-limited people, created and led public-private partnerships across multiple sectors to close the digital divide in cities across the U.S., developed custom computer and tablet training curricula and train-the-trainer programs, worked with stakeholders to build digital inclusion capacity and create talent pipelines into college and tech in communities of color, and she also developed innovative processes to accelerate tech adoption for hundreds of thousands of end-beneficiaries in the United States. Maribel’s traditional and virtual digital skills training curricula for secondary students, working-age adults, and seniors has been adopted in 30 U.S. cities and counting.

Maribel approaches her social sector leadership through a humanistic lens, meeting people where they are to improve professional and life circumstances. Her high-impact digital inclusion programs, leveraging her academic background in measurement and evaluation and business development instincts, have been sponsored by major financial institutions. She considers her digital inclusion work to be an extension of her first career as a teacher, and education clients continue to seek her unique blend of skills and experience to innovate classroom teaching, improve instruction, and student outcomes. As a lifelong learner, Maribel earned a nonprofit management certificate with a concentration in financial success from Cornell University in 2018. Maribel continues to donate her time to advance important issues and in 2016 was appointed to the Miami-Dade County Commission on Human Rights, in addition to having served on various boards over the years. She has appeared on CBS, Telemundo and has been interviewed about the digital divide by journalists across the country. Maribel lives in Miami, Florida, with her family.