Hacking Entrepreneurship Around the World
By Lella Violet Halloum
What a stimulating ten days! The Hacking Entrepreneurship Summer Immersion programme has been so motivational, insightful & has encouraged me to push myself more than ever when planning & manifesting my professional future. It was the perfect way to drag me out of the depths of uncertainty after such an abrupt end to my academic year during these anomalous times. Amy, Lauren, Caleb & Alli led us with respect & showed genuine willingness to see us succeed.
The six essential skills were taught to us in an interactive & easy-to-understand manner. We received workbooks supporting our studies, workshop activities to action our new learning & easy-to-follow guides & templates teaching us how to pitch with confidence & end with a BANG!
Each day, our lessons were dedicated to one of the skills & we heard from industry experts putting them into practice. The entrepreneurs who joined us were so willing to share anything & everything with us, which was so informative & refreshing! Being a techie myself, I particularly loved hearing Amit Rawal’s entrepreneurial journey into the e-commerce world. His response to my question about diverse teams particularly resonated with me: Amit highlighted the importance of focusing on mindset over skill set when developing an inclusive team and also made us aware of the need for cognitive diversity alongside demographic.
As the second week commenced, we had to start finalising our idea ready to swim with the sharks on the final day of the course. Using my newly acquired toolkit of knowledge, I chose to develop a digitally-inclusive ‘architect’ idea — meaning that I built it from the ‘ground’ up after identifying a gap in the market.
Before the course started I was always keen to work on a non-profit business so being able to turn that loose idea of mine into a reality was wonderful! I worked on an accessible app to improve tech accessibility for underserved and underrepresented groups particularly during these troubling times. I found calculating my total addressable market & defining my business model a challenge but with access to the teams’ insights and attending the after class office hours I quickly picked it up & within days my app ‘NecessIT’ felt ready to launch, so much so I am now keen to implement my solution in my local community and know the exact actionables required for success.
Post-programme, I feel a significant shift in mindset, I feel fearless & ready to ‘drive for daylight,’ & be more proactive rather than reactive. Already, I have noticed myself subconsciously observing the world through a different lens categorising ideas into sunbird, integrator, architect etc. Regardless of your future prospects, the Hacking Entrepreneurship programme will develop skills applicable in all situations and help you shape your future roadmap. School curriculums on both sides of the pond must now recognise that in order to properly prepare the future workforce we must bring industry into the classroom and close the gaps between us.
