Celebrating Jackie Noborikawa

Jacqueline, Jackie, Noborikawa was one of Techdren’s original Co-Founders and Chief Communications Officer. She was devoted, driven, and passionate about the work we are doing. Unfortunately, she passed away in 2019 at the age of 21 to colon cancer. This post is written in celebration of her life, to commemorate all of the hard work that she put in to make Techdren the company it currently is, and how we plan to continue to honor her memory.

For those of you that may not have had the pleasure of knowing Jackie she was from Hawaii and far from home studying Data Analytics at Champlain College in Vermont which is how she got involved with creating Techdren. She was part of the group of students who travelled to the islands of Zanzibar in 2018 as part of a Champlain College core class. For those of you already familiar with Techdren’s history you should know this trip as our founding moment where we were all inspired by the passion and dreams of the students we met. Before we even left the island Jackie was pulling us together to discuss what we could do to help those students achieve those dreams that they had described to us. That was one of her strengths for sure, encouraging others to work together to achieve a single vision of helping others.

After that trip, to use Jackie’s own words, “with a fiery spirit, we came back to Champlain College and got to work.” Out of all of us at that time the one who most embodied that fiery spirit was Jackie. She was so passionate about what we were doing that she inspired us and soon others to join us. On top of this, she was all about the details and was not afraid to remind us about pending tasks over and over again until we saw it done. I am confident that during Techdren’s early years nothing would have been accomplished if not for Jackie’s drive. Along with her drive, despite not having a background in communications Jackie excelled as Techdren’s Chief Communications Officer. So if you were in communication with Techdren from our start then there was a high likelihood that the one you were talking with was Jackie.

Despite being sick and across the country in Hawaii, Jackie kept on top of her Techdren work. She was attending meetings even though there was a six-hour time difference, staying on top of her communications work, and still finding time to make sure everyone else was on track as well.

Since Techdren would not exist without Jackie, we at Techdren are committed to keeping all of the hard work she put in alive and continuing to commemorate her throughout our future. Part of this will be in our work with the Kidike community in Zanzibar which always held a special place in her heart. Our future trips and work with this community will be in honor of her. Stay tuned for other ways that we’ll be commemorating her.

I know I speak for all of us here at Techdren when I say she is greatly missed.

-CEO Anna Matich