Community Stories

How one lifelong community leader discovered that technology wasn’t changing who she was—it was helping her become more of who she’d always been.

For months, the computer sat untouched.

It occupied a corner of the tenant council office in Philadelphia’s Liddonfield public housing development, where Imani Badie served as vice president, representing nearly 600 families. Every day she walked past it while organizing meetings, helping neighbors solve problems, advocating with housing officials, and representing the voices of hundreds of residents.

 She was one of the community’s leaders, but she was afraid to turn on the computer.

“To be quite honest,” she says, “I was scared. I was literally scared sitting at the computer in my office.”

Today, that confession makes her laugh. At the time, though, the fear was real. She had never learned to use a computer and worried she would break something. She worried everyone else understood computers except her. Growing up in a Christian household, she even wondered whether relying on technology somehow meant relying less on God.

“I thought learning technology would take me away from God,” she recalls. “I know that sounds silly now.”

The irony wasn’t lost on her. As vice president of the tenant council, she had already advocated for more computers and computer instructors for residents. She believed her neighbors deserved access to technology long before she believed she could use it herself. 

As vice president of the Liddonfield tenant council, Badie regularly met with community leaders, housing officials, and advocates from across Philadelphia. After meetings, colleagues would exchange business cards and ask for her email address.

She always found a way to avoid answering.

“I’d just say, ‘Call me,'” she recalls. “I was really embarrassed because I didn’t have an email. I didn’t even know what email was.”

She didn’t want anyone to know that while she could organize hundreds of residents, advocate for her community, and speak confidently in meetings, she didn’t know how to navigate something everyone else seemed to assume was basic

Eventually, curiosity won; one afternoon she sat down, pressed a few buttons, watched AOL appear on the screen, and quickly shut the computer back off. She still had no idea what she was doing, but that single moment became the first step on a journey that would reshape her career, her family, and the way she serves her community by adding technology to a lifetime of leadership.

Long before she ever encountered that computer, Badie had developed a habit of learning. Growing up, she experienced homelessness, hardship, and poverty. With limited resources, Badie had never owned a computer, but she had nevertheless discovered books. She became an avid reader, teaching herself history, philosophy, psychology, religion, and leadership. Her bookshelf ranged from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning to Malcolm X, Anne Frank, Booker T. Washington, Billie Holiday, Khalil Gibran, and the Bhagavad Gita.

“I’m very glad that I still have the mind of a student,” she says. “I love to learn from other people. I’m self-taught. I’m an avid reader and I’m a history buff.”

Money was always tight.

“I’ve always worked,” she says. “I just didn’t make enough money.” 

Owning a computer wasn’t realistic. For years she didn’t even own a cell phone. Technology simply wasn’t something her family could afford. 

Still, she kept looking for ways to serve. That’s why. while living at Liddonfield, she became vice president of the tenant council, representing nearly 600 families. 

When welfare reform required her to enter the workforce, she accepted a job as a pharmacy technician. The position required using a computer, but only for entering prescriptions and insurance information. She learned enough to perform her job, but email, word processing, and the broader digital world remained unfamiliar.

Her desire to serve stretched well beyond public housing.

One day she read an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer describing the alarming outcomes facing Black mothers and Black children.

“I was disturbed by the article,” she remembers. “I had to do something to make sure my kids make it.”

Her Pennsylvania state representative lived just down the street. Rather than simply worrying, she knocked on his door with an offer.

“I told him, ‘I’m very good at writing. If you let me come into your office and answer the phones, I’ll volunteer.'”

She wanted only one thing in return: To be in the room where decisions were being made so she could have her voice heard. 

The representative agreed, but there was just one problem. His office ran on computers, and Badie didn’t know how to use one.

He sent her to Harrisburg for a short introductory computer course. There she learned the basics—turning on the computer, entering information into databases, and navigating office software. When she returned she could input information, but she still wasn’t using email, writing letters on a computer, or navigating the internet. 

Instead of discouraging her, that realization motivated her. She began searching Philadelphia for every free computer class she could find. Free computer labs at neighborhood organizations became her classroom. She spent countless hours at the People’s Emergency Center (now HopePHL) learning from instructor Nathan Kuruna, Achievability, and especially Drexel University’s Dornsife Center, where she practiced writing emails, applying for jobs, completing scholarship applications, and building the digital skills that would open new opportunities. 

“I really do appreciate the computer labs,” Badie says. “The jobs that I put in for, the scholarships I apply for—I do them at the computer lab. So I’m very, very thankful for that.” 

But using those resources required determination. Without a computer at home for much of her journey, Badie often rode multiple buses simply to spend a few hours at a computer lab. She planned job applications, scholarship essays, and other important online tasks around the limited operating hours of neighborhood labs—hours that often conflicted with work and family responsibilities.

Even then, access wasn’t guaranteed. “One week I went to Achievability to do my taxes, and they told me the computer lab was closed all week because they had classes,” she recalls. She wishes more community computer labs were open in the evenings and on Saturdays, when working adults are more likely to have time to use them. 

Her experience shows that having computers available isn’t always enough. People also need places they can actually get to—and use—when they need them. 

Badie never viewed those computer labs as the end of her education. They became part of a lifelong habit of learning that grew alongside her career. Every class led to another skill, every skill opened another opportunity, and developing those digital skills gave her the confidence to keep saying yes to new challenges. 

As Badie puts it, “As I was rising in my career, I had to learn how to use technology because if I didn’t, I was going to be at a standstill. It’s already assumed that you know how to use a computer and most times, they don’t teach you.”

After volunteering in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, she became project coordinator with the Urban Affairs Coalition. When that grant-funded position ended, she accepted a job as a clinical assistant at a behavioral health wellness center, where she would spend the next decade.

Today she sees those same feelings in the behavioral health clients she serves.

“I think the real problem comes from fear and embarrassment,” she says. “We just have to let people know it’s okay if you don’t know.”

Her story demonstrates something policymakers often overlook: digital equity isn’t simply about providing internet service or distributing devices. It’s about giving people a window beyond the circumstances they’re born into.

What changed her trajectory wasn’t one breakthrough—it was a community willing to keep investing in her.

As her digital confidence grew, so did her opportunities to lead. The woman who once avoided computers went on to coordinate community projects, spend a decade working in behavioral health, serve on nonprofit boards and public committees, and write articles that caught the attention of local organizations. Supervisors trusted her to draft proposals, colleagues relied on her writing, and she was invited to speak publicly, eventually receiving job offers from universities and government agencies.

Along the way, she joined boards and committees across Philadelphia, including the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, where she learned how governments plan communities years into the future. After losing her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother to cancer at young ages, she became a patient advocate with the Black Women’s Health Alliance, determined to help others navigate a healthcare system that had often failed her own family.

Her advocacy against violence is equally personal. Badie’s oldest son was killed by gun violence at the age of 22. Today, as the grandmother of nine, she says that loss continues to shape her commitment to violence prevention, mental health advocacy, and creating safer communities for the next generation.

As such, she’s also a part of  Children 1st, an education advocacy organization focused on improving education outcomes for children while also teaching parents how to advocate for their children’s education.

Technology hadn’t changed who she was. It had simply given her new ways to lead and allowed more people to benefit from the leadership that had always been there.

 Technology hadn’t changed who she was; it had allowed others to see the leadership that had always been there.

Technology expanded every one of those roles.

Learning email meant opportunities finally reached her.

Learning Word allowed her to write articles and proposals.

Learning Google Workspace allowed her to create surveys, presentations, and community materials.

Learning artificial intelligence gave her another research tool—one she uses thoughtfully, understanding both its strengths and its limitations.

In 2025, she challenged herself again by applying to the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Technology and Thomas Jefferson University’s SPARK Innovation Academy.

During the interview she admitted she still knew very little.

She didn’t understand logic models or problem statements. She had barely used a laptop.

“I told my professor, ‘I don’t even have a laptop and I don’t know how to use it.'”

She was accepted into the inaugural cohort anyway. 

Every Tuesday she spent five hours learning Google Workspace, Google Slides, design thinking, search tools, ChatGPT, Gemini, and other emerging technologies. She graduated in April 2025. That same spring she also completed the University of Pennsylvania’s Community Scholars Program and West Chester University’s Community Health Program. 

Most people would consider three graduations enough.

Badie does not.

“I’m still traversing my technology journey,” she says. “Every time I turn around, something pops up that I don’t know about.”

She still emails Nathan.

She still contacts her Jefferson professors.

She still enrolls in classes.

“If I have to take a hundred classes, I don’t care until I become proficient.”

That lifelong learning has changed her work, but perhaps nowhere has it mattered more than at home.

When the COVID-19 pandemic sent her grandchildren home with school-issued laptops, Badie was ready. She was able to help her grandchildren navigate virtual learning because she had spent years building her own digital skills. Without those skills, she says, they might have fallen behind in school. Instead, digital literacy passed from one generation to the next.

Today she helps an elderly aunt stay connected so she can continue aging safely at home. She helped her find affordable internet service, but she knows that a connection alone isn’t enough. Like many older adults, her aunt wanted to learn, bought a computer, and then let it sit unused because she didn’t know where to begin. Now Badie uses the digital skills she worked so hard to gain to help her aunt navigate technology with confidence, encouraging her to keep learning just as others once encouraged her.

She also uses those skills every day helping clients apply for jobs, complete online benefit applications, and access services that increasingly exist only online.

Today, working with behavioral health clients, Badie recognizes the same fear and embarrassment she once felt herself. She still remembers not having an email address when everyone else assumed she did and avoiding conversations because she didn’t want anyone to know she didn’t understand computers.

“I think the real problem comes from fear and embarrassment,” she says. “We need to let people know it’s okay if you don’t know.”

Today, Badie sees digital inclusion as an investment in future generations. As the grandmother of nine, she believes every child and every family deserves the same opportunity to look beyond their circumstances. 

“Technology can show you beyond the block you live,” she says. “I’m in the hood. I can get on the internet and see how people live in Canada. I can learn from people who’ve overcome adversity.”

She calls technology a “window to opportunity.”

It’s a window she believes every community deserves.

When policymakers talk about broadband, devices, or digital skills, Badie hopes they understand what those investments really support.

They support parents helping children succeed in school.

They help workers qualify for better jobs.

They help patients advocate for their health.

They help older adults stay connected.

They help community leaders become even more effective.

An investment in digital equity, she says, doesn’t just help one person use a computer. It helps people find jobs, access benefits, support their families, contribute to their communities, and build lives they once couldn’t imagine.

For Imani Badie, one computer in a public housing office became a window. The view beyond it changed everything.