Case Study · Akamai Technologies
The Akamai Foundation supports STEM education across 12 countries. Their website didn't reflect scale. I changed that.
The Problem
The Akamai Foundation carries the legacy of Danny Lewin, Akamai's co-founder and a mathematical genius who helped build the modern internet before losing his life on September 11, 2001. The Foundation continues his spirit of innovation and community by investing in STEM education and tech access for underrepresented communities around the world.
For years, the Foundation's web presence reflected a workflow built for a smaller scale. From 2021 to 2022, the experience lived as a PDF paired with a short companion site housing an animation. From 2023 to 2025, a new microsite was built each year alongside a fresh PDF download. Each iteration started from scratch, with no continuity, no scalable architecture, and no platform to build on.
The ask for 2026 was fundamentally different: "How do you take a legacy workflow built for annual resets and rework it into a scalable platform worthy of a global foundation? And how do you do it while Akamai itself is undergoing a full corporate rebrand, while the Foundation simultaneously needs its own distinct brand voice within that system?"
The answer wasn't just a new site. It was a new way of thinking about what the site needed to do, and who it needed to serve.
Before
After
What I Did
End-to-end ownership: concept to code. I executed the full design and build in Illustrator and WordPress/Elementor, working within a Creative Director's vision for the Foundation's brand while adapting to Akamai's January 2026 rebrand in real time.
The architecture supports a growing content ecosystem: homepage, mission, partners, and community impact pages, anchored by a templated partner post system that lets each of 187 organizations have their own dedicated presence without custom builds.
Visual Design
Full site design layouts, graphics, and visual assets all created in Illustrator within Akamai's brand guidelines.
Build & UX Execution
Implemented the design end-to-end in WordPress using Elementor — no hand-off, no translation loss between design and build.
Partners at Scale
Built a reusable post template for partner organizations making it easy to add new partners without redesigning each time.
Information Architecture & Site Map
Structured the site so content, stats, and partner stories can be updated year over year without a rebuild.
The Work
The site is image-heavy by design. Photography and visuals carry the emotional weight while small, punchy data points anchor the scale. Each number earns its place on the page.
187
partner organizations worldwide
12
countries represented
$12.5M
in grant funding surfaced
The About page carries the most narrative weight, weaving Danny Lewin's legacy into the Foundation's present-day mission. It's the page that answers the question every visitor should leave with: "Why does this work matter?"
Every section is designed to be updated and expanded as the Foundation grows. The platform scales with the mission.
Global partners section — 187 orgs, 12 countries
Templated partner page — reusable across all orgs
The Outcome
The site launched in March 2026 and is live at akamaifoundation.com. Partners were proud to finally have a presence that reflected the scale and significance of their work. The client's response said it all.
"This looks beautiful and really tells our story."
What I'm most proud of is the evergreen nature of the platform. For the first time, the Foundation has a site that creates ongoing visibility into the work they do, not just a snapshot that gets replaced next year. The mission grows. Now the website grows with it.