HITN Mourns The Passing Of Its Esteemed Colleague And Friend Erica Branch-Ridley
The Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN) acknowledges with great sadness the sudden passing, September 16, 2019, of Erica Branch-Ridley, Vice President- Product Development for HITN Learning. HITN extends its deepest sympathy to Erica’s children, family, colleagues and friends during this sorrowful time.
Erica was a two-time children’s Emmy Award-winning producer who joined HITN in 2013 following a career with CBS News, Black Entertainment Television, Viacom (Nickelodeon, TV Land), and Sesame Workshop. Her first three years at HITN she spent as co-leader of the development of a system of bilingual transmedia resources for Hispanic preschool children under a $30 million U.S. Department of Education Ready To Learn grant. Following the release of the 16 Pocoyo Playset apps, which received Parents’ Choice and Kidscreen awards, she turned her attention to deriving a new line of bilingual preschool learning resources from the grant-funded work, now populated by the Latin legacy property called Cleo & Cuquin (YouTube, Netflix). Under her leadership the initial series of bilingual Cleo & Cuquin Family Fun! math learning kits and apps were released to extraordinarily positive consumer response. At the time of her death she was producing content for HITN Learning to make it the premier destination for parents of Hispanic preschoolers.
In these six years at HITN she applied her deep-seated beliefs in how to power interactive learning experiences across platforms, and bring meaningful diversity to both content and producer staffs. She led from the heart as well as the brain, and had that special power of making everyone around here believe that impossible tasks were possible if everyone respected and demanded excellence from each other.
Our beloved colleague and friend is survived by 3 children, Nya, Olivia and Jonathan Ridley, for which a GoFundMe education fund has been created in order to support and further their education through these difficult times. If you wish to make a donation, click on the button below. Your generosity is most welcome and appreciated.
