TINFA is a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization registered in Washington State.  It was created in 2001 with the desire to help bridge the digital divide. 

Current board members are:

Emma Le Dû
Emma is the Exec. Director of TINFA. She has previously held positions at the Grameen Foundation  as Senior Technical Program Manager. She has been in Information Technology for over 15 years, at Microsoft and Amazon.com in various positions in International and Program Management. Emma has spent two years in Lao P.D.R, as a computer consultant to the European Union and UNDP. She holds an Engineering degree in Robotics and Electronics (ESIGELEC in Rouen France) and a Master of Public Administration from the Kennedy School (Harvard University) with a focus on Leadership and International Development. Emma is TINFA's co-founder.

Mike Madden

Mike is retired and lives in the Loyal Heights neighborhood of Seattle, just north of Ballard. He attended Western Washington University and completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Education, majoring in History and French. Mike taught at Meadowdale Junior High School for five years before joining Safeco Life Insurance Company, now known as Symetra Life Insurance. Mike retired from Symetra as Vice President and head of the Individual Product Line after a rewarding thirty-three year career there. Mike believes in volunteer service, having served several years as President of the Northwest Regional Board of Dollars for Scholars. He currently volunteers with University Sunrise Rotary Club, with the Seattle Bureau of Fearless Ideas tutoring organization and is President of the Board of Bright Future Dollars for Scholars.  

Gerrit Bergsma

Gerrit  is sales and marketing professional with over 25 years of experience in the PC industry in both Europe and the USA. Bergsma is currently the Director WW Retail Category Management for Windows PC’s as part of the global Category Management organization at Microsoft.
Gerrit transitioned to the Microsoft Corporate Headquarters in Redmond in 1998 from the Microsoft Benelux subsidiary where he led the Dutch and Belgium retail sales organizations. Prior to his current role at Corp, he held various global management and business development roles working with OEM partners, Retail partners and Telecom partners. Gerrit holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA.

Sarah Ford

Sarah has been a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Bain in the Seattle area since 2001.  Before selling real estate, Sarah spent 4 years as a Development Assisstant for CARE, the international non-profit development and relief organization.  She also spent 5 years as a Producer for a Consumer Software company and two different dot com companies.  While growing up, Sarah had different experiences living overseas in England, Kenya, France & Japan.  Recently she spent a year with her family living in Copenhagen.  She fully believes in the value of international exchange and finding creative ways to enhance and enrich educational opportunities for children.  Sarah has a BA in International Relations from Tufts University.

Kelly Schactler

Kelly is a project and program management consultant and owner of a business that focuses on project management education for individuals and nonprofits.  An alum of University of Washington (BA Marketing Management) and University of Alaska, Anchorage (MS Engineering Project Management), she is passionate about sharing project management tools and concepts to enable organizations to excel in project delivery. As a volunteer, Kelly has served in various roles including: executive director of a small Alaskan grassroots commercial fishing organization, board member for a homeless shelter in Kodiak, Alaska, and project management mentor for several Seattle nonprofits. She is excited to explore  the possibilities and opportunities that await TINFA.  Kelly likes to hike Pacific Northwest trails, explore listening to new music and musicians, and stays curious about the world through travel, reading, and cooking. Having been drawn to Latin American countries and people through various experiences throughout my lifetime, partnering and linking arms with TINFA at this time in my life seems like the right thing to do; to help facilitate technology and learning in remote and underserved areas. 

Eli Sheldon

Eli has volunteered with children ever since he was a child himself in Massachusetts, and after a four-year stint at Microsoft, he jumped into the world of education full-time in 2015. Embedded in several Seattle-area public schools, Eli created a computational thinking program that brings problem solving skills rooted in computer science to other disciplines. This CT program features lessons like using decomposition to analyze criminal justice reform or racial bias in traffic stops, using pattern recognition to study earthquake in real-time or to improve a kickball team, and using abstraction to create 3D Greek monuments or body-system-inspired amusement parks. Eli recently taught high school computer science in South Seattle and is now a curriculum developer at TechSmart, a local K12 computer science organization. Eli is excited to bring his passion for educational equity and his experience in partnering with teachers to create powerful learning experiences to TINFA.

Zoe Stein

Zoe is a recent Seattle transplant working as a Program Manger in Microsoft Azure. She is an Indiana native but moved to Atlanta to complete her undergrad in Industrial Engineering at Georgia Tech, then to Seattle following graduation in Dec 2018. The West Coast has her heart because she constantly craves adventure- running, biking, climbing mountains, and always open to something new! On a nerdier note, there’s nothing she loves more than being challenged with an ambiguous, complex business or data problem. She’s extremely fortunate to have access to ample resources that enable her to take on these challenges through continuous learning and growth, and wants for everyone who desires to have access to this same opportunity. She deeply believes in TINFA’s mission of bridging the digital divide and has seen the amazing project success and empowerment while working on video content with Emma. She has immense energy around the positive impact TINFA is making and cannot wait to join this passionate group of individuals to support the organization in any way possible!

Board Emeritus 

Margarita Medina
Margarita grew up in Colombia, S.A. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota and a M.S. in Software Engineering from Seattle University. After working in the software industry for over 11 years for companies such as Unisys and Microsoft, Margarita became a United Nations Volunteer working for a UNDP project and a Computer Consultant for Save The Children in Lao P.D.R. She currently works for the Technology Department at the Seattle Public Schools. Margarita is TINFA's co-founder.