The First Inaugural LifeSchool Buildathon — August 2019

We built things — and it was a good time.

At LifeSchool, we have a singular belief about passion:

“Passions aren’t found — they’re built”

The future belongs to those who build it. In the era of code-free tools and technology, anyone can be a builder. All you need is a little bit of time, a team, and an idea that you care about bringing to life.

But despite how easy it is for us to breathe life into projects that we know will positively impact the world around is — it’s easier still for us to keep pushing things off. Because we have schoolwork. Or friends. Or jobs. The list goes on.

If we stop creating, we stop learning. If we stop learning, we stop growing. There’s nothing worse than living a life that’s stagnant.

So we thought about all of the work that we’ve been doing with LifeSchool, and the way we’ve been rethinking online education. We stole a piece of wisdom from the altMBA in redesigning online education:

“Everything is easier when you’re a part of a community”

The reason MOOCs see completion rates below 10% is because they are inherently isolating experiences. There’s nothing more lonely than sitting down in front of your computer screen to watch hours of lectures on complex economic theory. At least if you’re in a lecture hall you can distract your friend sitting next to you.

As simple as it is, that’s the key to any quality experience. Community. Humans are social (not technical) creatures — and the power of peer pressure is tremendous when used with good intention.

So we got a small group of close peers together — just seven of us — and dedicated a whole weekend to ideating, prototyping, and building projects that were solving real, meaningful problems in the world around us. And the results were fantastic. We created four projects across four different domains, and we were so excited by the weekend that we’re going to start doing it every month. If you’re interested in joining us in September (either in Charlottesville or remotely) — sign up here to get notified about future buildathons.

Here are the projects that came out of the August 2019 buildathon:

• Candid2020: Partyless Politics by Matt Quan, Tyler Chartier, and David Robles
• CareerStart: Career Advice by Angelica Fasano and Yash Tekriwal
• ProductiveLemon: Productivity hacks/tools by Garrett Vercoe
• Friendly: Environmentally friendly D2C products by Andy Page

Let’s get a round of 👏👏👏 for these magnificent people — and stay tuned for the September buildathon announcement. Get notified to participate by signing up here.

P.S — We’re helping people build their careers and their passions over at LifeSchool. You can even get school credit. Find out more here.