Hameeda Begum
Hameeda Begum spoke to us from her home in Hyderabad, a city in the southeast of India. Hameeda is a Data & Integration Engineer at Salesforce and part of a global volunteer tech team helping America SCORES behind the scenes. She joined SCORES Labs as a volunteer in April of 2021 through Salesforce’s 1-1-1 model philanthropy program, which dedicates 1% of the company’s equity, 1% of its product, and 1% of employees’ time back to the community.
Why did you decide to work with a nonprofit more than 8300 miles away?
When I first heard about America SCORES, it was an instant match. I knew this was where I wanted to help. The work would involve using the Mulesoft technology I use in my job every day, but I would be using that technology to handle a different kind of data—nonprofit data—and that was exciting.
Secondly, The work we contribute to has a clear impact on children's lives. Supporting kids at a crucial time in their development is so rewarding. You are helping them grow into happier and healthier people.
And working with SCORES has provided me with great opportunities for my own technical growth. While I came in as primarily a developer, I was able to move into data science and full-stack work by identifying pressing needs. Since then, we have created multiple dashboards and are using Tableau to visualize the data. It was about recognizing a need and going for it.
That's interesting. You saw an opportunity to use a tool, a visual analytics platform—Tableau—to create a visual story with the data collected by SCORES.
Right. We use the MuleSoft technology to retrieve the data from Salesforce CRM and Tableau to use the data to visually tell stories for reports and other needs. Many people absorb and understand information much more quickly when presented visually. So we are using the combination of tools to analyze how we are doing as an organization and what we can do to improve.
When I started working with SCORES, I was already interested in doing more with Tableau, so the chance to explore further appealed to me. So right away, I got to use two of my skill sets and new tools.
So as someone working in tech, there’s a continual need to refresh your skills and the technologies you’re adept with. What other kinds of tech tools are you using with SCORES?
With nonprofits, you’re not always working exclusively with licensed tools. When I joined SCORES Labs, the most technically interesting thing was getting to work with open-source solutions; we're using Google Drive API libraries, GitHub actions for CI/CD, and Tableau Online.
In doing this work, we're creating an impact while we're gaining new knowledge and expanding our skill sets. And that can come in handy in your professional life. It’s been a great learning opportunity, and as this collaboration continues, I’m looking forward to exploring more technologies.
Where do you see the real value in the work you’re doing with SCORES?
In our day jobs, you sometimes settle into a routine, and it can be harder to see the larger impact of your contributions. When you come into a nonprofit space, you know you are contributing to a bigger good—you’re helping someone and something. It’s very clear, and that reward is significant.
As developers or technical people, we generally don’t get the chance to use our technical skills for volunteering or working with nonprofits— because these kinds of opportunities are rare. Most of the volunteering available is on the soft skills side. Working with SCORES, we can use the technical skills we use each day in our work to create a real impact. Doing something that you're good at to make a difference in other people's lives is a powerful experience.
And the flexibility is great. There have been weeks when I haven't been able to connect with Pete (Swearengen, SCORES CTO) because of other obligations, but when I come back the next week, we pick up right where we left off.
When you’re not working or volunteering, what do you like to do?
I love to read – fiction, nonfiction, all of it. Right now I’m reading the nonfiction book “Sapiens” by the Israeli historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari. It’s a dense read, and it’s taking me a while, but it’s really interesting. I also like to watch Netflix and recently liked “Money Heist.”