Austin Thompson | Founder & Executive Director
Community Dynamix

Austin Thompson is the founder and Executive Director of Community Dynamix a catalyst for multi-stakeholder collaboration focused on the intersection of tech and community impact. He is a philanthropic advisor, technology educator and board member committed to inclusive innovation and equity across lines of racial, economic and geographic difference. Austin collaborates with leaders across multiple sectors to ensure equitable funding/fundraising and innovative strategies for broadband expansion and inclusive economic and workforce development. He recently led efforts to launch a multi-million dollar philanthropic initiative to prepare communities for the equitable deployment of the $42B Broadband Equity Access Deployment (BEAD) funding in 7 states across the country.  Austin brings a global perspective to his strategy and fundraising work and his international efforts have been covered in El Heraldo in Ambato, Ecuador, and the Washington Post. His first job after college was teaching high school at the Senegalese-American Bilingual School in Dakar, Senegal. He studied abroad at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India.  Austin has finance and operations strategy experience in both the private and in the social sector sector. Austin was most recently at Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in supply chain operations supporting a low latency LEO satellite broadband internet service called Starlink. Austin led sourcing for multiple assemblies for an optical laser communications system while also launching a global philanthropic effort to connect hundreds of schools in rural and remote locations to high-speed internet in Chile, Brazil and Ukraine. Altogether, Austin raised greater than $10M in 1.5 years towards digital connectivity in these regions.  Austin is the former Executive Director of the Youth Engagement Fund (YEF), a philanthropic intermediary created to put the most vulnerable young people and emerging leaders in the driver’s seat of social change. Austin built philanthropic systems that aligned with the core values of the fund, raised and re-granted millions of dollars to civic engagement efforts, and led a strategic planning process before transitioning out.  He previously served as a program consultant for the Technology and Media Innovation Initiative at Four Freedoms Fund for immigrants and refugees. He sourced projects to use machine learning and two-way text platforms to activate audiences in new ways. Austin is proud of the work he led at one of the largest service sector unions in North America SEIU where he launched a program for next generation leaders and later served as Special Assistant to the organization’s Secretary Treasurer.