Organizing Climate Code 2021

In 2020, I joined Vancouver’s leading high-school hackathon organization, XdHacks Mini Vancouver.

I worked on and developed the biggest high-school hackathon event ever, and fundraised over $1,000 for the event.

Looking back, this was one of the best experiences of my life as I learned a lot about how to organize events, how to lead a team, and how to work with others. Running this hackathon showed me a lot about managing people, how people work, and how to be a leader.

What is a Hackathon? #

A hackathon is a collaborative, intensive, and usually time-bound event where people, often programmers, developers, and other tech enthusiasts, come together to solve a problem or build a new product or feature. Usually they are seen at various universities and sometimes companies will organize them. For high-schoolers, there are only two that I know (JamHacks and LosAltos Hacks) which consistently organize hackathons. Usually, high-school hackathon organizations require a ton of mentorship (for obvious reasons) from university students, teachers, and potentially schools themselves.

About the Event #

The event was a very fun event, filled with tons of speakers, sponsors, and workshops. I believed in bringing in really informative and informational speakers and workshops which would encourage more people to get involved in technology.

As the Executive Director of the event, I led my team of 12 high-school students, and 20 ambassadors through the entire process of running the event. All of this organization happened between April 2021 and August 2021, perhaps some of the most interesting periods of my life.

During this summer, I was almost solely focused on the event in July 2021, as I had graduated a year early from high-school. I put in countless hours and thought through some really amazing events and planned it out as best I could.

The result was the biggest high-school hackathon in BC history, garnering 253 participants, over 16 workshops, dozens of sponsors, and setting a high standard for future events.

At the time, the website was located at: https://mini.xdhacks.com/vancouver/climate-code.

The event banner.

Here are some of the topics that I have highlighted in a reflection from over 2 years ago.

Mission #

Our mission at the very get go was clear: To inspire others to get involved with technology. I really tried to hammer home the idea that having just one person inspired from our event would make it a success.

Mistakes #

Throughout the organization of the event, I tried to focus our team on understanding that Quality was the most important thing. We were high-school students, and mistakes would be made, but at the end of the day, we needed to learn from our mistakes.

We made a lot of mistakes that I think we would not make today looking back. However, I don’t think we would have changed a single thing.

Time Commitment #

The thing about high-school volunteering is that everyone’s at school, and expectations for commitment to the mission and the vision greater differs every single day. Some people are out on vacation, some are at school, some are applying to university, some are preparing for SAT, and others are working on other extra-curriculars. Unlike a job, there is no motivation other than the mission and vision for people to commit to volunteering. That’s why I really tried to reflect a lot as the leader.

I asked myself why are we doing what we are doing often. What will this volunteering experience provide for our executives. How does this experience align with our Executives’ goals. “What” can I do to help you achieve your dreams.

Sponsorship #

As a high-school organization, it’s very hard to convince other organizations about your mission and your vision. We needed both financial and in-kind donations to make our event happen, and it wasn’t as easy as we expected.

There are two parts of getting a financial contribution. Number 1, you need to see if they are accepting applications for financial grants. Number 2, you need to figure out if you have what it takes to develop a really great

Speakers #

Speakers are also very difficult to organize. However, I think it’s a bit easier than others because you have a larger pool of talent to choose from. It’s ideal that we can find someone who aligns with our mission and are crafted for the best possible experience. We had a lot of meetings discussing these logistics and how we could provide the best experience for our attendees without making it too overwhelming.

One of my accomplishments was getting our Keynote Speaker, MLA Brenda Bailey, who at that time was BC’s Parliamentary Secretary for Technology and Innovation to come to our Zoom meeting and give a really great presentation.

Conclusion #

Looking back, this was one of my fondest experiences in my life and is something that I’ll look back upon really fondly. I think our entire team: Alex, Callum, Christina, Tiffany, Sarah, Karen, John, Brian, Sam, Aqeel, and Simrit will remember this experience for the rest of their lives. And I know that we made an impact that although is immeasurable, will be remembered.

Event Videos

Here is the opening ceremony of the event

Here is the workshop that I provided with Brian Han and John Kang

Here is the full Opening Ceremony for the event