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Foster families are doing the hardest work in child welfare. They open their homes to children who have lost everything familiar. They do this while working with a case team of adults, who are making high-stakes decisions from fragmented, siloed information. The systems built around child welfare are not designed for the people providing daily care. The foster parent has no formal channel to contribute to the picture that shapes that child's future. FosterConnect exists because I got tired of waiting for someone else to build it. Using AI as a force multiplier, I built a working MVP in under a week at nearly zero startup cost. We are now building toward a platform designed to meet compliance standards, giving foster families a secure, unified tool that puts the child front and center. Attendees will leave with a clear framework for AI governance, honest account of what AI-assisted development looks like in practice, and why foundational knowledge is core to success. The barrier between a good idea and working proof has never been lower. This session is about what you do with the tools, the knowledge, and the experience you already have to build for the most vulnerable populations.
Foster families are doing the hardest work in child welfare. They open their homes to children who have lost everything familiar. They do this while working with a case team of adults, who are making high-stakes decisions from fragmented, siloed information. The systems built around child welfare are not designed for the people providing daily care. The foster parent has no formal channel to contribute to the picture that shapes that child's future. FosterConnect exists because I got tired of waiting for someone else to build it. Using AI as a force multiplier, I built a working MVP in under a week at nearly zero startup cost. We are now building toward a platform designed to meet compliance standards, giving foster families a secure, unified tool that puts the child front and center. Attendees will leave with a clear framework for AI governance, honest account of what AI-assisted development looks like in practice, and why foundational knowledge is core to success. The barrier between a good idea and working proof has never been lower. This session is about what you do with the tools, the knowledge, and the experience you already have to build for the most vulnerable populations.
Melissa Bauer was introduced to computers in 1995 and held her first work study job as a student computer consultant in 1999. She holds an electrical engineering degree and an MBA and brings twenty-five years of technology experience across public sector, nonprofit, healthcare, and K12 education.
As a foster parent, she kept a Word document because nothing better existed. That document became FosterConnect.
Melissa is the founder and Executive Director of FosterUnity, Inc., an Ohio nonprofit building communication infrastructure for the foster care community. The platform she is building exists because a lifelong technologist looked at the families technology left behind and decided the gap was no longer acceptable.
She uses AI as a force multiplier, not a shortcut. Twenty-five years of experience is what tells you when to trust the output and when to go back to first principles.
