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The Verizon Tech Savvy Awards are the first national awards designed to provide incentives for grassroots, community-based nonprofit organizations and schools to create programs that demystify technology for parents, enabling them to better guide their children in the use of new media.

The awards honor sustainable family literacy programs that help bridge the widening gap between adults' and children’s understanding of technology. Both generations must learn about technology together, so parents can be effective teachers and advocates, and to ensure that their children are literate in technology and prepared for the 21st-century workforce. The awards are run by the esteemed National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) with generous funding by the Verizon Foundation.

2009 Award Winners

The 2009 Verizon Tech Savvy Award winners were announced on March 2, 2009, at the National Conference on Family Literacy in Orlando, FL. These standard-setting programs serve as models for integrating technology training into traditional family literacy programming. Click here for profiles of each of the winners.

2009 marked the third year of the Tech Savvy Awards. The awards banquet featured author, illustrator and Verizon Foundation Thinkfinity Champion Peter Reynolds and author Greg Forbes Siegman.

This year’s banquet incorporated Reynolds’ book The North Star. The North Star tells the story of a young boy who embarks on a journey that leads him to a place he does not love. Ultimately, he looks beyond the path and finds that the sky literally lights up with stars to show him a new way. Reynolds guided the audience through an interactive journey of the 21st-century learner, illustrating in real time how students are met along the way by many different stars that ultimately make the constellation of their life. Guest host Siegman asked audience members to describe a person that influenced their journey. As audience members described the person and their impact, Reynolds sketched their “star.” The banquet concluded with a constellation representing the 21st-century learner. Audience members left knowing that everyone has a different journey, a different path, their own star and constellations, and with the inspiration to be a star in the lives of the students they teach.To view the constellation created at the banquet click here.