Building innovation pipelines with Sarah Sharif, Founder of Experimental Civics
I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Sharif, entrepreneur, award-winning hackathon organizer and current Founder & CEO of Experimental Civics.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what events have drawn you to this specific career path?
I guess you can say that once upon a time, I was a normal person. Then I became an entrepreneur, which as I understand it, you have to be crazy to do. My journey to entrepreneurship and building innovation pipelines began when I realized the power of events. While working for Sierra Club organizing EPA hearings and town hall meetings in several states focused on clean air, I experienced early success when I saw the turnout had an actual impact on the state of affairs.
From there, my curiosity took over and I became obsessed with figuring out how to organize events to intentionally create impact. I started researching the history and outcomes of hackathons, what factors make an innovation ecosystem work, and the challenges faced by every stakeholder that would be involved in a hackathon. After some reading, I knew I had to explore using hackathons to create socially impactful technology.
Eager to apply my passion, I landed a role at St. Edward’s University ATX Hack for Change which kickstarted my current career path. As the Director, I was able to confirm sponsors like Google Fiber and Cisco, and scale the events from 50 to 300+ participants.
Can you share your story of Grit and Success? First, can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?
Everything comes down to trust. As an innovator, you always face a crisis of trust along with immense pressure and risk. Everyone challenges you, questioning who you are, why you want to change things, who are you to be experimenting, etc. In my early twenties working at the Sierra Club, I was working with people much older and higher up than me like VPs and CIOs. I had to pitch them on my ideas to experiment with hackathons and got a lot of push back.
People vouched for me and that was very empowering, helping me to embrace the resistance, show up every day, and let my work speak for itself. There needs to be a safe space for failure and compassion. Power through knowing you have the data, experience, and passion to succeed.
How were you able to build trust and confidence in order to pursue your ambitious goals with people?
Simply, give first and follow through.
When I approach people, I come from a place looking to provide value. It’s about how I can help them, not how they can help me. Though it is a value exchange, it can’t be me, me, me. Trust is a fragile thing and people who offer to do this and that but don’t deliver, don’t set a good precedent for a mutually beneficial relationship.
Based on your experience, can you share 5 pieces of advice about how one can develop an innovation pipeline?
Start from the impact report and work backward. Think about what impact you want to make and build a roadmap. At ATX Hack for Change, I wanted to organize their largest hackathon for social good and I achieved that in 4 years. With Capsule, I’m out to build an 18-month innovation pipeline producing over 500 projects where the strongest ideas have a clear path forward with the support of major institutions.
Understand who needs to be at your table. Attracting the right partners is key because you just can’t do it alone. Identify who is missing from the table and be bold enough to invite them. With Capsule, I approached many people that I had established trust with and presented my idea to bring in my initial key partners that share the vision of making it a reality.
Be flexible. It’ll never be what you started with. It evolves, as all ecosystems do according to stakeholders’ shifting needs and people moving from company to company which can impact your pipeline.
Be a chameleon, be relevant. It’s crucial to understand all the needs and challenges of stakeholders like nonprofits, universities, corporations, governments, and accelerators. Know your audience and speak their language. Bringing together diverse entities to invest and work towards a singular mission, you need to be well versed in their world.
Listen to your own vision. You need to have the self-confidence to follow your vision, even if what you’re doing has never been done before. Know when to follow or not follow advice that might not serve you and can pull you in a direction you never intended.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
My proven methods, refined over many years, are meant to add value to people, planet, and profit. I think that’s evident with the results I achieved at ATX Hack for Change during my time as the Director.
Here are some of the wins I think are worth sharing:
Life Sci Hack [Austin]:
66.7% of the participants learned about interoperability for the first time.
91.7% of participants loved the hackathon as a way to solve challenges.
Life Sci Hack [London]:
Aaron Fishman, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Bristol studying bio-inspired robotics, was intrigued to attend this hackathon because of his experience in the life sciences and limited opportunities to actually apply his well-versed, and diverse skills to his field.
“I know the math, software, and algorithms, but I’m limited in my knowledge of DNA and in-depth biological systems. Focused programs like Life Sci Hack help me learn outside my field, but more importantly, they help me learn fast, play fast, and find more breakthroughs quickly.” — Aaron Fishman
ATX Hack for Change [Austin]:
Influence Texas originated as Influence TX at a 2017 hackathon and was founded by Amy McCullough Mosley. The purpose of Influence Texas is to inform the Texas electorate by putting politicians’ campaign finance records next to their voting records in one succinct, mobile platform.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
My company, Experimental Civics, is organizing a climate-crisis focused hackathon called Capsule that will take place in Austin, Texas in June of 2020. I’m going big, like break a Guinness World Record big. With the current state of affairs surrounding climate change, I believe scalable solutions are needed more than ever. Capsule will gather over 4,000 bright minds of various disciplines to hack forward 500 projects that intersect with the environment and food, art, energy, health, cities, or education.
A civic event of this nature has never happened before and I’m so excited to be moving forward with the support of some very special partners. I’m working with The Earth Hacks Foundation and TechTogether to host this event and with larger partners that are in a position to provide continued support to further develop the best ideas and prototypes that get built during the 2-day hackathon.
What advice would you give to other executives or founders to help their employees to thrive?
Understand risk, innovation and how managing emotions plays a role in your decision making and interactions.
Make sure employees feel safe to share ideas and have a process for extracting those ideas without fear of exploring them.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
Believe in yourself every step of the way and dump limiting beliefs.
Know your worth, that you’re valuable, special, and have something great to contribute. In hackathons, I see a lot of young women step into technology for the first time, accomplish something, and find that sense of unshakable confidence.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Be willing to live for the last time.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach from the book ‘Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self’
This quote taught me the importance of having clarity in the moment and always being present. It instilled a sense of focus and urgency to do the right thing now, correct wrong actions, own my lumps, and express my love.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Instagram: @exp_civics
Twitter: @Exp_Civics
Facebook: facebook.com/ExperimentalCivics
Website: experimentalcivics.io/
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
