Teeniors Is Helping Seniors Reconnect With Their Loved Ones

Teeniors are tech-savvy teens and young adults who help senior citizens through one-on-one, personalized coaching. Our goal is to empower seniors to connect with their loved ones and engage with the world through technology while also providing paid, meaningful work to young adults. This began as a business idea I pitched at a start-up event last year. Through the hard work of an outstanding team, it won first place. Since then, Teeniors has evolved into a vibrant platform connecting teens and young adults with elders of all ages in the greater Albuquerque area.

The idea was inspired by my mom, Lillian. She’s 77 and loves technology, such as social media and smartphone apps, but she also hates it—like when she loses passwords or misplaces documents. As her kids, we do the best we can to fill that need, but we can’t always be there to help. It turns out there are millions of Lillians in the U.S. alone, and their options for personalized tech tutoring are either curt and impersonal (i.e., customer service lines) or extremely expensive (i.e., Geek Squad). In addition, there is no reputable program out there that provides an intergenerational learning experience like Teeniors.

We believe that technology can only take us so far. The human connection of Teeniors is what makes our service unique. I heard of the TakePart + Lenovo contest through a friend who saw it online. It was a perfect fit! We knew we were doing something important and groundbreaking with Teeniors, and now that we have been honored to win this grant money, I’m so excited that it opens an opportunity to extend our work further, to see if this is something that we can make sustainable in New Mexico and beyond.