TAXI INDUSTRY SCHOLARSHIPS
A
pair of New Jersey entrepreneurs who are just now breaking into the
New York City’s taxi industry launched last week a program aimed
at furthering the education of taxi drivers and their kids.
Ed
Sloam and Jae Choi, co-founders of the New Jersey based Taxi Technology
Corporation (TaxiTech), have awarded a taxi driver and the daughter
of another driver – both from the taxi heavy borough of Queens
-- college scholarships as part of a new program geared towards helping
taxi drivers and their children gain first class educations.
TaxiTech,
one of four companies recently selected by the Taxi and Limousine Commission
(120 companies originally expressed interest) to provide mandatory new
technology to all 13,000 plus New York City cabs, decided to give something
back to the driver community after witnessing first hand what the drivers
endure to make ends meet.
“Cab
drivers are the lifeblood of New York City’s taxi industry,”
said Sloam, the 38 year old President of TaxiTech. “They work
extremely hard for very little pay, with the hope of making a better
life for themselves and their children. Knowing full well that a better
life starts with a better education, Jae and I initiated this program
aimed at helping taxi drivers and their families get their college degrees."
Among
the technological improvements soon coming from TaxiTech:
- The
ability for passengers to pay by credit card;
- a
Global Positioning System (GPS) to provide greater driver safety;
and
- a
state of the art touch screen that will provide heaps of streaming
content and advertising opportunities.
Sloam
and Choi reached out to the driver community in various ways, including
placing ads in trade publications and flyers and conducting a competitive
application process and a Scholarships Committee to select the recipients.
In
this, the inaugural year of the Taxi Tech College Scholarship Program,
Rahul Singh, a 33 year old taxi driver attending Queensborough Community
College and Santita Agnew, an 18 year-old Freshman at Penn State University
whose father has been a taxi driver for more than 30 years, were awarded
scholarships to their respective schools.
Both
Singh and Agnew, who were selected from a slew of applicants due in
large part to their personal stories and financial needs, will receive
$2,000 toward the 2006-2007 school year.
Singh,
who emigrated from New Delhi, India in 1999, has been driving a cab
for four years while at the same time taking courses towards a nursing
degree at Queensborough Community College, making the Dean’s List
and maintaining a GPA of 3.6.
“Thanks
to TaxiTech, I’ll be able to continue driving my cab while continuing
my education,” said Singh, who was admitted to Queensborough in
2002, but originally couldn’t go due to what he called “financial
reasons.”
Singh,
who lives in Richmond Hill, is representative of many first generation
American cab drivers who, as he put it in his essay, have “no
family, no friends and no financial help,” when they first arrive
in New York. “I had to face certain hardships but I never let
them become…obstacles [to] my desires,” Singh continued
in his essay.
Singh’s
story is far different from Santita Agnew, who’s 15 years younger
and has never driven a cab. But Agnew’s father, Leroy, a cab driver
since 1971, faces many of the same financial challenges as Singh.
As
Santita recalled in her application for the scholarship, Leroy “has
been driving for over thirty years and until this very day he is still
struggling to hold everything together. Now he has to worry about paying
for college as well.”
Leroy,
who drives out of the Style Management garage in Queens, originally
wanted to be a police officer, but did not qualify because he only completed
the seventh grade. He doesn’t want to see his daughter’s
dream of being a pediatrician encounter a similar fate.
Santita
maintained an A- average while at Bayside High School in Queens while
performing a slew of extracurricular activities including serving as
a tutor, feeding the homeless once a week for three years and organizing
the production of Shakespeare plays at her high school.
But
even with this stellar record, she needs to look no further than her
father to recall how blessed she is to be in college.
“People
fail to realize that going to college is not a right, but a privilege,”
Santita wrote in her essay. "There is an abundant amount of people
in the world who did not and still do not have the opportunity to further
their education.For example, my father is one of the many people who
were not able to attend college; for this reason, higher learning is
very significant to me.”
Leroy
could barely contain his emotion when talking about the opportunity
Taxi Tech has provided his daughter. “To say that I’m thankful
would be a total understatement,” Leroy Agnew said. “With
the help of TaxiTech, my daughter will now get opportunities I could
have only dreamed about.”
As
for TaxiTech, its co-founders are looking forward to showcasing their
new technology platform, E-eTaxi, in New York City taxis beginning at
the end of this year and are confident that the scholarship program
will continue.
“We’re
thrilled that we could help out Santita and Rahul,” said Jae Choi,
33, TaxiTech’s Chairperson. “Hopefully we’ll be able
to expand the program in future years to help as many taxi drivers and
their children as possible.”
Scholarship
winners Rahul Singh and Santita Agnew,
along with Leroy Agnew, Santita's father
The
scholarship winners and family members
along with TaxiTech President Ed Sloam (far right).
© 2015 TLC Magazine Online, Inc. |