YouthHack Year 3 Reflections: Growth, Sustainability & The Future of YouthHack Global
It’s crazy to think that 3 years ago was the first time I stepped foot in Silicon Valley as a recent high school graduate visiting the University of California Berkeley. I still recall getting the opportunity to attend various startup events and hear from entrepreneurs like Salman Khan.
Specifically, it was when Salman Khan talked about the idea of using technology to solve problems at scale that I fell in love with technology, startups and entrepreneurship.
This inspiring sense of excitement, collaboration and innovation would lead to the start of YouthHack.
I started YouthHack, along with a few high school friends, 3 years ago with the goal of bringing the Silicon Valley culture to Manila and inspiring students to use technology to solve problems — never did I think that YouthHack would turn into an international organization in such a short amount of time. Year 3 was when YouthHack Sri Lanka, YouthHack Bangkok, YouthHack Calabarzon and YouthHack Malaysia were all established.
Along with this rapid expansion were growing pains and questions on sustainability and the organization’s future. Yet for every challenge and problem that YouthHack faced, there were people who were there to help us breakthrough. This post is dedicated to celebrating the family, friends, mentors, partners and supporters who helped make year 3 one for the books.
Year 3 Lessons: Empowerment & Trust
This past year for YouthHack has been a big one in terms of sustainability and growth. It was during this year that we learned one of the biggest challenges when it comes to running an international organization: the growing pains of leadership change, member empowerment and organizational sustainability.
As the founder of YouthHack, it was always a big question for me on how to empower our new members and at the same time, instill in them the spirit and values that YouthHack started out with. This past year showed me the importance of trust as YouthHack Sri Lanka, YouthHack Bangkok, YouthHack Calabarzon and YouthHack Malaysia were all born out of trust and faith in amazing individuals who brought the same fire, passion and enthusiasm as the YouthHack founding team — Sanjula, Big, Patricia, Eshaan, you guys rock!
Stepping Down As Chapter Leader of YouthHack Manila & YouthHack Philly
This past year marked two big changes within YouthHack — stepping down from my day to day role as Chapter Leader for YouthHack Manila and YouthHack Philadelphia.
Back in August 2016, I stepped down from my day to day role as chapter leader of YouthHack Manila and chose our former VP of Events Mika Go Tiong to become the new chapter leader. Since then, Mika along with the rest of the exec board and core team of YouthHack Manila have gone above my expectations — successfully putting together the YouthHack Ideathon and launching a series of Startup Challenge events and mixers in various schools in Manila.
The success of YouthHack Manila after I transitioned out showed me a MVP of a replicable model that we could use for other chapters as well. With the same intention of making sure the YouthHack Philadelphia chapter remains sustainable even after I graduate, I stepped down from my chapter lead role for YouthHack Philadelphia, and appointed Katherine Sizov and Jeffrey Gao as Co-Presidents/Chapter Leaders — I’m excited to see what you guys do in the next year for YouthHack Philadelphia.
Indeed, I’ve come to realize that one of the greatest things about running YouthHack has been seeing our members grow as individuals, leaders and change makers, similar to the growth I’ve experienced in the past 3 years.
What’s next for YouthHack?
Two things: Sustainability and Growth. These are the two overarching things I’ll be focusing on now that I’ve transitioned out of my chapter leader/president roles in Manila and Philadelphia. And I won’t be going at these alone — in the next few weeks, we’ll be assembling a YouthHack Global Executive Board to help us in this next phase of our mission of empowering youth to turn their ideas into reality.
Despite all the setbacks, challenges and growing pains, I’m proud to say that the goals that we set 3 years ago for our 4-year plan still remain, with the YouthHack Asia Summit (shout-out to Pau Joquino for pledging to make this happen) and YouthHack Global Summit still on track to happen in the next 2 years. But at the same time, it’s now time to for us to reevaluate these last 3 years so we can put together a plan for the next 3–5 years that will allow us to continue our mission of educating youth about startups, technology and entrepreneurship and empowering them to turn their ideas into reality.
While we’ve been able to accomplish a lot as a completely student-run organization in the past 3 years, I do believe that there are even bigger things we (YouthHack) can do as a global organization to help shape the minds of young people all over the world.
At YouthHack, we’ve always been thinking about what lies ahead — like holding the first-ever Code Weekend event in Microsoft Philippines or starting a student-run and focused startup accelerator in Southeast Asia. We want to continue being at the forefront of bringing these innovative ideas and programs to our students. A teaser of some ideas we have in store include a YouthHack Online Academy and a YouthHack Global Fund.
One thing is for sure: the YouthHack team will continue to think, create and innovate.
Seeing thousands of people come together in our various YouthHack events around the world in these past 3 years keeps me optimistic that the youth can play a role in helping the world come together. It’s easy to be pessimistic about the future especially because of all the political, cultural and racial turmoil and problems going on in the world right now, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in these last 3 years, we’re never too young to make a difference and that relationships and bonds across cultures can be forged.
As I end this 3 year anniversary post, I just want to thank everyone who has made these last 3 years such an incredible journey from the late nights planning the countless Startup Challenges and Code Weekends to all the restructuring and team planning sessions to the post-event highs, these last 3 years have been some of the best years of my life and I can’t wait to continue to see everyone in the YouthHack family grow personally and professionally!
As always, if you’re interested in helping out or getting involved with YouthHack, feel free to email me at david@youthhack.net. Learn more about YouthHack here.
