hi everybody my name is Megan I was
lying is a lot louder than I was
expecting
do you guys remember when you were
younger and people would always ask you
what do you want to be when you grow up
a lot of times people answer like going
to Creston gonna be a princess I want to
selections were made for me my
confidence started from day one I was
consistently appointed the line leader
of my secondary classes and because of
that I always felt really empowered like
I had a lot of confidence and I could do
anything I wanted so I was absolutely
crushed when I found out that line
meeting was not a professional career so
after that I moved on to zoology at
considered animal school and I’m not
sure if it’s because they actually
really liked animals or because the word
zoology was just really impressive to my
friends but what I do know is that one
rainy morning
I encountered a few too many worms and
decided that if those are the most basic
life form I don’t think I can handle
anything more complex no so and this is
still a dream I have today I consider
maybe going on America’s Got Talent
and not for any really boring talent
like singing or dancing it’s because I
had these double-jointed fingers and I
thought like surely my way to a million
dollars obviously I haven’t pursued
those dreams but it still
think that I’m thinking about everyday
one thing you may also notice though is
that I never mentioned anything about
technology and that’s the organizers
said this is all about technology this
session even though my dad was a
software architect and always wanted me
to get into technology I didn’t think
about technology ever and whether it was
because I was just edging your belly and
didn’t want to listen to my dad or
because I didn’t think I was actually
good enough for technology I never found
any sort of interest in it but if you
see me today and as you heard when they
were talking about these I have gotten
pretty into the youth tech scene in
Cincinnati so what exactly happened well
this is where the title of my this is
where the title of my presentation makes
more sense so in the fall of 2016 at the
beginning of my sophomore year my friend
phoned me up and asked me if I wanted to
go into revolution you see and obviously
I was like what is revolution you see
and she told me it’s a 24 hour overnight
packet on a coding competition and
obviously I was like why are you asking
me I don’t even know how to code but
then she told me it was free and I was
absolutely hooked so I decided then that
I was going to go then she phones me on
the day of the event tells me that she
can’t though something came up and I
just come back from a debate tournament
where he lost a few too many rounds and
I wasn’t about to like me style again so
I decided to go when I dropped a friend
I’m about six hours late and I come
across this now this is like probably a
tenth of the amount of food that was
there and they actually didn’t
photograph all the other food because
the parents wouldn’t approve but I
arrived there and their tubs and tubs of
just Indian food Mexican food there are
mountains of mountain dew there are like
towers of Gatorade there are so much
food there and of course they had my
favorite which was chocolate pudding the
only thing I did faster than learning
how to code at this hackathon was
downing 12 cups of chocolate pudding in
keep in mind that I come to this event
pretty much not knowing how to code at
all I knew around four lines that my dad
had somehow gone through my head but
outside of that I didn’t know how to do
anything so when I arrived there with my
friend we were seeing graduating PhD
students next to us creating like water
conservation devices or they were
creating something that would help you
with donations and then for us you’re
like oh you know it’s a good idea and
empathetic mean generator basically what
this did was they would take a picture
of you analyze your emotions and spit
out a custom meme of you based on those
emotions so as you can see here I was
smiling but my eyes are closed so it
gave me the title subdued I was also in
around 40 minutes of sleep here so we
create this means everything I’m looking
back on it it was really really bad like
honestly I can’t believe I actually
wrote some of those stuff in there but
what it did teach me was that I had the
ability
to create impactful things using code
something that I had never considered at
all possible before we ended up winning
best sites will happen very competitive
competition that there were two total
teams vying for that spot and we won and
what it actually did show me just
outside of pursuing tech was that
perhaps I should stick to software
because I got an Arduino robotics kit
right after as my award and I broke it
the day off so I’m gonna stick to
software but even further than just that
what it showed me not just that I had
the ability to code but it also showed
me that I had the ability that I was
good enough that I was smart enough that
I was in general enough for computer
science something that I had never ever
so then I decided that I was going to
start a club afterwards I found up a
friend we argued over what kind of club
we should start whether or not even
wanted to start a club but then once we
decided yes we’re going to start a club
the first thing I did was going to
Google and search coding Club because I
didn’t know any and the only ones I
could find were either geographically
restricted or age restricted so as a few
moments away from emailing code club
which is an after-school coding club
organization based unfortunately in the
UK I was going to email them begging
them to extend their membership to us
students like me when I stumbled upon a
the top 30 under 30 Forbes list in 2016
on like the third or fourth page of
Google but you know it’s getting bad
whenever third fourth page of Google so
I open up this page those’ll in curious
like how does this have anything to do
with coding bugs and as I’m reading
through it I read up on somebody means
it’s a Claddagh now Zach wada was 18
when he founded PAC club and I was also
wondering what haplit was so then I
started reading up on a club and
absolutely fell in love with their
philosophy they were creating coding
clubs that were run by high school
students for high school students that
were focused on action and creativity
and that was not something that was
often seen so I decided that the moment
that I wanted to start a hack Club since
starting in January of 2017
Mayson hot clubs student involvement has
impacted over seven
students around the community in various
first-time ventures whether it’s cincy
hats
Cincinnati’s first high school hackathon
or it’s the first annual student-run
summer coding camp called hacked him
that we ran last year in this year or
even just the small but really unique
community outreach programs that we put
together every year
Mayson a club that’s already impacted so
many students so I already if it’s
really pretty cleaner now that I’m
pretty into technology I’m run I’m
working on some front-end development
job but actually I have to go to right
after this P times but I’m pretty into
technology now so the only question I
really have for myself after seeing all
of these stats was why didn’t I get
involved earlier and as I asked more
people to consider joining Mason hafla
or to go to cincy house or to even go to
Howard Chicago the other hackathon they
ran this summer I almost always got a
really similar response I’d be terrible
you don’t want me or you think I can
come you need to be a genius to code be
definitely not smart enough and those
sentiments are so commonly echoed yet it
really hit struck a chord with me
because those are the same sentiments
that I had a year or two ago the problem
here is not the fear of failure we too
often points that point about as the
reason why people don’t do stuff but in
reality it’s not the fear of failure but
it’s even worse that’s the crushing
acceptance that we aren’t good enough
that has stopped so many of us from
pursuing passions and
potentially unknown paths but if those
sentiments are true the idea that we’re
not good enough then why do I have fifth
graders at my hat camp every year are
creating fully functional websites from
scratch it’s not that you can’t do it
it’s that we believe we can’t do it
because not enough people around us are
and it’s that self-confidence very
that’s really difficult to get over so
as I have kind of veered off course a
lot in my tech career I don’t I’ve
created a lot of events that Pavley
existed before perhaps we got into some
people’s backsides while doing so but I
veered off the path quite a bit and
although it’s been really difficult I’ve
learned a lot and still learning a lot
right now so I actually have three
things that I learned on the way that
I’d like to share a few say the first
idea that they have for you today is
this idea of being absolutely shameless
so story time I was running once again
the hackathon in Chicago called hatchet
logo it was a huge event but we only had
a four person team running this so all
of us took on huge chunks of the work
and I was delegated the task of raising
$20,000 in just four months pretty much
by myself
$20,000 quite a bit of money so I
started where I always started with the
smaller events and just email people and
your companies begging them
and though that worked it was too slow
around two months out from the event I
still needed our $16,000 I did not know
how I was gonna get there at the rate I
was going so this is where I became
absolutely shameless I started
connecting with so many random people on
LinkedIn just hit Connect connect
connect it didn’t even necessarily care
about if they would think it was weird
maybe if they even knew me I just
connected because I connected to these
people because I genuinely believed that
they would really enjoy the mission that
magic hago is life so I just connected
and I even have the guts to connect with
some top level executives at some major
companies that you might recognize such
as Dunkin Donuts Pandora music
Encyclopedia Brittanica and while of
course there were a lot of people who
never accepted my request I think
there’s about 150 people here who just
never accepted it there were a lot of
people who did accept my request and
they were really excited about what I
was doing one of the main things I
started doing as I was becoming more and
more shameless as I stopped sending
really normal eNOS I sent really short
emails and actually started attaching a
one the two-minute video to them which
would sometimes take days and days to me
where I would just talk about why I was
contacting them and why hack Chicago is
so important and one of the most
incredible stories for me is when I
requested to connect with a
high-level executive at McDonald’s that
I also emailed him and I was just hoping
for some words of encouragement honestly
I got so many rejections at that point
that I was like if they just tell me
that this events gonna be okay then
that’s already read enough for me but
what he ended up doing was responding
extremely positively he was so excited
about what we were doing and it was the
first time that I really gotten that
connection with somebody who was so high
up in the corporate world so he ends up
responding saying yes we would love to
sponsor your event and McDonald’s
sponsored the first student hackathon
they ever sponsor an action I’ll go in
five thousand dollars in total PAC
Chicago went incredibly I raised around
twenty four thousand dollars for this
250 person event and though it was
really difficult it made an impact PAC
Chicago became the Midwest’s largest
High School hackathon and it’s not a
title that I could really be so proud of
if we didn’t know how difficult it was
to get there so the next idea I have for
everybody is where are you coming from
what does your context now this sounds
like a lot of philosophical jargon maybe
even sound like the ECT reading section
but what are your resources what are
your barriers for example education
initiatives and
educated areas are the most difficult to
implement that they’re the most
impactful reducing crime in crime ridden
areas is definitely harder than reducing
crime in Utopia yet so much more
necessary and for me reducing the
self-confidence in equity when it comes
to tech is so much more difficult here
than it is on the coastal areas where
tech is very prominent yet it’s so much
more needed here very often we’ll get
caught up in the numbers it’s very easy
to compare your events or your program
with events that are running across the
country and I mean it’s easy to get
frustrated because of that events on the
coast will almost always have more
people more money be partnering with
cooler companies yet if you look at the
stats they don’t mind for since he has
90 percent of attendees had never been
to a hackathon before yet 95% agreed
that since he has inspired them to
continue to pursue computer science for
half camp it’s even more astounding 100%
of our in total 180 attendees agreed
that they would continue to pursue
computer science even if for them for
many of them was the first time they’ve
ever done it these stats don’t lie and
while the numbers may seem super
different like we have way less
attendees than people on the coast the
impact is equal if not larger here
remember your context then remember your
impact because you should be valuing
impact above all else impact is the
metric
that compares everybody and sometimes
180 students in a coding camp coding for
the first time has the same impact as a
500-person high school hackathon on the
coast
so the third principle perhaps the least
intuitive is this one sometimes when
things are on fire they don’t
necessarily have to burn even if a lot
of things are in fire and a story’s
going to help the best here if you were
to think about when you’re in middle or
high school and the teacher it asks
somebody for a $20 bill and somebody
would like reluctantly handed out and
then they set it on the fire and then
everyone him to freak out but then it
turned out that the business hall
located the end that’s exactly what I’m
talking about
for at Chicago and the suspend be the
first time that most of our attendees
are hearing this we had a lot of stuff
that was catching on fire we didn’t have
a venue early enough because we didn’t
have enough money and because we didn’t
have enough we because we didn’t have a
venue we didn’t know how many people
would come and because of that we didn’t
know how much stuff we would have
ordered so we had nothing
ordered around two weeks in advance we
were ordering stuff for 300 400 about a
week out from the event yet with us
staying up until 2 a.m. and every single
day for weeks on end to make sure this
event brand it didn’t and it ran well
the moral of the story here is that when
you have a fiery passion and you combine
that with this desire to make incredible
things it is inevitable that stuff will
catch on fire but level-headedness
passion and determining
before I leave the stage I want to leave
you with this I have struggled more than
I would like to admit when it comes to
choosing to fear off the path almost
every time yet choosing to go on that
unpaved path has shown me this entire
world of technology and it has created a
second family of CS nerds for me I’m not
here to indoctrinate woods attack I get
not all of us like empathetic mean
generators it makes sense we don’t all
want to pursue tech but I’m sharing my
story with you because regardless of
where your passions lie whether it’s
coding whether it’s zoology whether it’s
double-jointed fingers I’m sharing my
story and my tools with you because we
all have the ability and the potential
to be trailblazers to be frontiersmen
to change the world in so many different
ways with our own fiery passions ask
yourself this how will you ignite the world thank you
lying is a lot louder than I was
expecting
do you guys remember when you were
younger and people would always ask you
what do you want to be when you grow up
a lot of times people answer like going
to Creston gonna be a princess I want to
selections were made for me my
confidence started from day one I was
consistently appointed the line leader
of my secondary classes and because of
that I always felt really empowered like
I had a lot of confidence and I could do
anything I wanted so I was absolutely
crushed when I found out that line
meeting was not a professional career so
after that I moved on to zoology at
considered animal school and I’m not
sure if it’s because they actually
really liked animals or because the word
zoology was just really impressive to my
friends but what I do know is that one
rainy morning
I encountered a few too many worms and
decided that if those are the most basic
life form I don’t think I can handle
anything more complex no so and this is
still a dream I have today I consider
maybe going on America’s Got Talent
and not for any really boring talent
like singing or dancing it’s because I
had these double-jointed fingers and I
thought like surely my way to a million
dollars obviously I haven’t pursued
those dreams but it still
think that I’m thinking about everyday
one thing you may also notice though is
that I never mentioned anything about
technology and that’s the organizers
said this is all about technology this
session even though my dad was a
software architect and always wanted me
to get into technology I didn’t think
about technology ever and whether it was
because I was just edging your belly and
didn’t want to listen to my dad or
because I didn’t think I was actually
good enough for technology I never found
any sort of interest in it but if you
see me today and as you heard when they
were talking about these I have gotten
pretty into the youth tech scene in
Cincinnati so what exactly happened well
this is where the title of my this is
where the title of my presentation makes
more sense so in the fall of 2016 at the
beginning of my sophomore year my friend
phoned me up and asked me if I wanted to
go into revolution you see and obviously
I was like what is revolution you see
and she told me it’s a 24 hour overnight
packet on a coding competition and
obviously I was like why are you asking
me I don’t even know how to code but
then she told me it was free and I was
absolutely hooked so I decided then that
I was going to go then she phones me on
the day of the event tells me that she
can’t though something came up and I
just come back from a debate tournament
where he lost a few too many rounds and
I wasn’t about to like me style again so
I decided to go when I dropped a friend
I’m about six hours late and I come
across this now this is like probably a
tenth of the amount of food that was
there and they actually didn’t
photograph all the other food because
the parents wouldn’t approve but I
arrived there and their tubs and tubs of
just Indian food Mexican food there are
mountains of mountain dew there are like
towers of Gatorade there are so much
food there and of course they had my
favorite which was chocolate pudding the
only thing I did faster than learning
how to code at this hackathon was
downing 12 cups of chocolate pudding in
keep in mind that I come to this event
pretty much not knowing how to code at
all I knew around four lines that my dad
had somehow gone through my head but
outside of that I didn’t know how to do
anything so when I arrived there with my
friend we were seeing graduating PhD
students next to us creating like water
conservation devices or they were
creating something that would help you
with donations and then for us you’re
like oh you know it’s a good idea and
empathetic mean generator basically what
this did was they would take a picture
of you analyze your emotions and spit
out a custom meme of you based on those
emotions so as you can see here I was
smiling but my eyes are closed so it
gave me the title subdued I was also in
around 40 minutes of sleep here so we
create this means everything I’m looking
back on it it was really really bad like
honestly I can’t believe I actually
wrote some of those stuff in there but
what it did teach me was that I had the
ability
to create impactful things using code
something that I had never considered at
all possible before we ended up winning
best sites will happen very competitive
competition that there were two total
teams vying for that spot and we won and
what it actually did show me just
outside of pursuing tech was that
perhaps I should stick to software
because I got an Arduino robotics kit
right after as my award and I broke it
the day off so I’m gonna stick to
software but even further than just that
what it showed me not just that I had
the ability to code but it also showed
me that I had the ability that I was
good enough that I was smart enough that
I was in general enough for computer
science something that I had never ever
so then I decided that I was going to
start a club afterwards I found up a
friend we argued over what kind of club
we should start whether or not even
wanted to start a club but then once we
decided yes we’re going to start a club
the first thing I did was going to
Google and search coding Club because I
didn’t know any and the only ones I
could find were either geographically
restricted or age restricted so as a few
moments away from emailing code club
which is an after-school coding club
organization based unfortunately in the
UK I was going to email them begging
them to extend their membership to us
students like me when I stumbled upon a
the top 30 under 30 Forbes list in 2016
on like the third or fourth page of
Google but you know it’s getting bad
whenever third fourth page of Google so
I open up this page those’ll in curious
like how does this have anything to do
with coding bugs and as I’m reading
through it I read up on somebody means
it’s a Claddagh now Zach wada was 18
when he founded PAC club and I was also
wondering what haplit was so then I
started reading up on a club and
absolutely fell in love with their
philosophy they were creating coding
clubs that were run by high school
students for high school students that
were focused on action and creativity
and that was not something that was
often seen so I decided that the moment
that I wanted to start a hack Club since
starting in January of 2017
Mayson hot clubs student involvement has
impacted over seven
students around the community in various
first-time ventures whether it’s cincy
hats
Cincinnati’s first high school hackathon
or it’s the first annual student-run
summer coding camp called hacked him
that we ran last year in this year or
even just the small but really unique
community outreach programs that we put
together every year
Mayson a club that’s already impacted so
many students so I already if it’s
really pretty cleaner now that I’m
pretty into technology I’m run I’m
working on some front-end development
job but actually I have to go to right
after this P times but I’m pretty into
technology now so the only question I
really have for myself after seeing all
of these stats was why didn’t I get
involved earlier and as I asked more
people to consider joining Mason hafla
or to go to cincy house or to even go to
Howard Chicago the other hackathon they
ran this summer I almost always got a
really similar response I’d be terrible
you don’t want me or you think I can
come you need to be a genius to code be
definitely not smart enough and those
sentiments are so commonly echoed yet it
really hit struck a chord with me
because those are the same sentiments
that I had a year or two ago the problem
here is not the fear of failure we too
often points that point about as the
reason why people don’t do stuff but in
reality it’s not the fear of failure but
it’s even worse that’s the crushing
acceptance that we aren’t good enough
that has stopped so many of us from
pursuing passions and
potentially unknown paths but if those
sentiments are true the idea that we’re
not good enough then why do I have fifth
graders at my hat camp every year are
creating fully functional websites from
scratch it’s not that you can’t do it
it’s that we believe we can’t do it
because not enough people around us are
and it’s that self-confidence very
that’s really difficult to get over so
as I have kind of veered off course a
lot in my tech career I don’t I’ve
created a lot of events that Pavley
existed before perhaps we got into some
people’s backsides while doing so but I
veered off the path quite a bit and
although it’s been really difficult I’ve
learned a lot and still learning a lot
right now so I actually have three
things that I learned on the way that
I’d like to share a few say the first
idea that they have for you today is
this idea of being absolutely shameless
so story time I was running once again
the hackathon in Chicago called hatchet
logo it was a huge event but we only had
a four person team running this so all
of us took on huge chunks of the work
and I was delegated the task of raising
$20,000 in just four months pretty much
by myself
$20,000 quite a bit of money so I
started where I always started with the
smaller events and just email people and
your companies begging them
and though that worked it was too slow
around two months out from the event I
still needed our $16,000 I did not know
how I was gonna get there at the rate I
was going so this is where I became
absolutely shameless I started
connecting with so many random people on
LinkedIn just hit Connect connect
connect it didn’t even necessarily care
about if they would think it was weird
maybe if they even knew me I just
connected because I connected to these
people because I genuinely believed that
they would really enjoy the mission that
magic hago is life so I just connected
and I even have the guts to connect with
some top level executives at some major
companies that you might recognize such
as Dunkin Donuts Pandora music
Encyclopedia Brittanica and while of
course there were a lot of people who
never accepted my request I think
there’s about 150 people here who just
never accepted it there were a lot of
people who did accept my request and
they were really excited about what I
was doing one of the main things I
started doing as I was becoming more and
more shameless as I stopped sending
really normal eNOS I sent really short
emails and actually started attaching a
one the two-minute video to them which
would sometimes take days and days to me
where I would just talk about why I was
contacting them and why hack Chicago is
so important and one of the most
incredible stories for me is when I
requested to connect with a
high-level executive at McDonald’s that
I also emailed him and I was just hoping
for some words of encouragement honestly
I got so many rejections at that point
that I was like if they just tell me
that this events gonna be okay then
that’s already read enough for me but
what he ended up doing was responding
extremely positively he was so excited
about what we were doing and it was the
first time that I really gotten that
connection with somebody who was so high
up in the corporate world so he ends up
responding saying yes we would love to
sponsor your event and McDonald’s
sponsored the first student hackathon
they ever sponsor an action I’ll go in
five thousand dollars in total PAC
Chicago went incredibly I raised around
twenty four thousand dollars for this
250 person event and though it was
really difficult it made an impact PAC
Chicago became the Midwest’s largest
High School hackathon and it’s not a
title that I could really be so proud of
if we didn’t know how difficult it was
to get there so the next idea I have for
everybody is where are you coming from
what does your context now this sounds
like a lot of philosophical jargon maybe
even sound like the ECT reading section
but what are your resources what are
your barriers for example education
initiatives and
educated areas are the most difficult to
implement that they’re the most
impactful reducing crime in crime ridden
areas is definitely harder than reducing
crime in Utopia yet so much more
necessary and for me reducing the
self-confidence in equity when it comes
to tech is so much more difficult here
than it is on the coastal areas where
tech is very prominent yet it’s so much
more needed here very often we’ll get
caught up in the numbers it’s very easy
to compare your events or your program
with events that are running across the
country and I mean it’s easy to get
frustrated because of that events on the
coast will almost always have more
people more money be partnering with
cooler companies yet if you look at the
stats they don’t mind for since he has
90 percent of attendees had never been
to a hackathon before yet 95% agreed
that since he has inspired them to
continue to pursue computer science for
half camp it’s even more astounding 100%
of our in total 180 attendees agreed
that they would continue to pursue
computer science even if for them for
many of them was the first time they’ve
ever done it these stats don’t lie and
while the numbers may seem super
different like we have way less
attendees than people on the coast the
impact is equal if not larger here
remember your context then remember your
impact because you should be valuing
impact above all else impact is the
metric
that compares everybody and sometimes
180 students in a coding camp coding for
the first time has the same impact as a
500-person high school hackathon on the
coast
so the third principle perhaps the least
intuitive is this one sometimes when
things are on fire they don’t
necessarily have to burn even if a lot
of things are in fire and a story’s
going to help the best here if you were
to think about when you’re in middle or
high school and the teacher it asks
somebody for a $20 bill and somebody
would like reluctantly handed out and
then they set it on the fire and then
everyone him to freak out but then it
turned out that the business hall
located the end that’s exactly what I’m
talking about
for at Chicago and the suspend be the
first time that most of our attendees
are hearing this we had a lot of stuff
that was catching on fire we didn’t have
a venue early enough because we didn’t
have enough money and because we didn’t
have enough we because we didn’t have a
venue we didn’t know how many people
would come and because of that we didn’t
know how much stuff we would have
ordered so we had nothing
ordered around two weeks in advance we
were ordering stuff for 300 400 about a
week out from the event yet with us
staying up until 2 a.m. and every single
day for weeks on end to make sure this
event brand it didn’t and it ran well
the moral of the story here is that when
you have a fiery passion and you combine
that with this desire to make incredible
things it is inevitable that stuff will
catch on fire but level-headedness
passion and determining
before I leave the stage I want to leave
you with this I have struggled more than
I would like to admit when it comes to
choosing to fear off the path almost
every time yet choosing to go on that
unpaved path has shown me this entire
world of technology and it has created a
second family of CS nerds for me I’m not
here to indoctrinate woods attack I get
not all of us like empathetic mean
generators it makes sense we don’t all
want to pursue tech but I’m sharing my
story with you because regardless of
where your passions lie whether it’s
coding whether it’s zoology whether it’s
double-jointed fingers I’m sharing my
story and my tools with you because we
all have the ability and the potential
to be trailblazers to be frontiersmen
to change the world in so many different
ways with our own fiery passions ask
yourself this how will you ignite the world thank you
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