Graduate Student Volunteers to Make I.T. Happen

Dmitrii Osipovskii’s laptop works like an extension of his body. He moves seamlessly around, carry his academic and growing professional life in digital files.

Osipovskii M.S. ’12 MBA ’15 isn’t unlike many UT students. But what he has found is that he is more of an anomaly than he once thought. For the past two semesters, Osipovskii has been volunteering with Computer Mentors, a nonprofit organization of technology professionals working to guide young people, particularly those without sufficient economic means, into technology access, education and careers.

Leading a team from Ad 2 Tampa Bay, Osipovskii is helping create and implement a complete marketing campaign for Computer Mentors.

“I’d like to think of Ad 2 Tampa Bay as a change agent,” said Osipovskii.

Ad 2 Tampa Bay is a nonprofit organization of young advertising professionals and is an affiliate of the American Advertising Federation and the Tampa Bay Advertising Federation. Every year, the group selects a nonprofit from the Tampa Bay area based on its relevancy to the community and Ad 2 Tampa Bay’s ability to make an impact.

Computer Mentors was looking for a way to increase its awareness in the community, even though it has been in Tampa for 17 years. From an academic and professional perspective, the opportunity for Osipovskii meant building a campaign by the book with his own thumbprint. It was an opportunity he felt could give him great experience, but also help out a worthy organization.

The campaign, Make I.T. Happen, involves creating a new brand with specialized logos, fonts and new design and photography for the website. Ad 2 Tampa Bay created a social media strategy and has empowered Computer Mentors staff with training on best practices.

“Dmitrii and the rest of the team really get what we are about. He felt our passion from the start, and I think that has shown through in each of the key deliverables he and the Ad2 team brought to the table,” said Mike Floyd ’98 MBA ’06, development director for Computer Mentors. “We've been around for nearly 18 years. We entrusted Ad2 with a blank canvas to help Computer Mentors better tell our story, and they have delivered on that, plus so much more.”

Osipovskii, who is from Moscow, Russia, said they launched the awareness campaign in February with about $262,000 in donated and matched media, from digital billboard placements to advertisements in news outlets like Creative Loafing, NPR and Tampa Bay Times. The team secured a Bright House Networks airtime grant for a video commercial and helped the organization in its application and success in being named a Lightning Community Hero, which included the showing of a promotional video about Computer Mentors on the Amalie Arena’s jumbotron.

This summer, Osipovskii will present their campaign as a case study at the American Advertising Federation’s national conference.

Osipovskii noted that he is seeing a new excitement in the air with the Computer Mentors’ staff and board members. “They see us passionate about this, and it is invigorating,” he said.

The Computer Mentors staff has been extremely excited and responsive with everything his team has developed, which could have been difficult for a group working with the same branding for almost two decades.

“The client is so responsive. We have recommended huge changes, and they’ve been on board,” Osipovskii said. “They totally inspire me.”

It’s not just the client, though, but all those on his team (nine total), who have full-time jobs and are working just as hard for Computer Mentors.

“What inspires me is that other people are sincerely volunteering and working so hard,” he said. “We are just now seeing the impact, and it’s very motivational.”

Osipovskii is certainly one of those working overtime for a good cause, too. He works in the College of Social Sciences, Mathematics and Education, assisting professors with research and office tasks. He interns three full-time days at PP+K Advertising Agency, is in graduate school full time and volunteers at least 20 hours a week at Ad 2 Tampa Bay.

“You don’t know what you can accomplish until you commit to it,” he said.

Have a story idea? Contact Jamie Pilarczyk, Web Writer
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