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| # TEDx Teen Application | ||
| ### Your Info | ||
| ##### First Name | ||
| Zach | ||
| ##### Middle Name | ||
| Robert | ||
| ##### Last Name | ||
| Latta | ||
| ##### Your Age | ||
| 17 | ||
| ### Your Contact Info | ||
| zach@hackedu.us | ||
| ##### Address 1 | ||
| 4080 18th Street | ||
| ##### Address 2 | ||
| N/A | ||
| ##### City | ||
| San Francisco | ||
| ##### State / Province | ||
| California | ||
| ##### Country | ||
| United States | ||
| ##### Zip Code / Postal Code | ||
| 94114 | ||
| ##### Telephone | ||
| 310-801-7309 | ||
| ### Online & Social Media | ||
| ##### Website | ||
| http://zachlatta.com | ||
| https://twitter.com/zachlatta | ||
| https://facebook.com/crynix | ||
| ##### Other Social Media Accounts | ||
| GitHub: https://github.com/zachlatta | ||
| ### Please tell us about yourself | ||
| I am the founder of hackEDU, a nonprofit dedicated to helping high school | ||
| students start programming clubs. My previous employers include Yo, where I | ||
| built the backend architecture for an app with over 3 million users, and Run | ||
| Games, where I helped develop our flagship game, Football Heroes, and grew it | ||
| to over a million users. I spend my spare time attending weekend hackathons | ||
| and learning new programming languages. | ||
| I started programming in the third grade when my friends and I built a website | ||
| about Club Penguin, a video game that we all played. Learning to program made | ||
| me realize that I can do anything or become anyone I want to be. That feeling | ||
| of agency has helped define who I am today. | ||
| I believe that hackers, people who create what they see missing in the world | ||
| and aren't afraid to break the rules, are the people who will solve the world's | ||
| biggest problems and I see it as my duty to give everyone the chance at | ||
| becoming a hacker. I believe that everyone, regardless of race, gender, or | ||
| socioeconomic status, deserves a fair chance at learning computer | ||
| programming and becoming a hacker. | ||
| ### What is your talk idea about? | ||
| I'd like to speak about programming, how it affects agency, and show students | ||
| that anyone can learn to build things. | ||
| ### How does your talk idea relate to our theme, "Simply Irresistible"? | ||
| Programming itself is deceptively simple--logical expressions written in text | ||
| with correct syntax and grammar--but the implications of it are enormous. I | ||
| believe that programming is the best tool to inspire agency in others, and I'm | ||
| on a mission to bring it to as many others as possible. | ||
| Programming is irresistible for the same reason the first successful airplanes | ||
| were: it's an unintuitive solution to a very ambitious problem. DaVinci's | ||
| first airplane design had flapping wings to propel itself. It took hundreds of | ||
| years and the discovery of fluid dynamics for Sir George Cayley to invent the | ||
| fixed-wing aircraft, an unintuitive solution to the ambitious problem of flight. | ||
| I believe that programming is the fixed-wing aircraft for inspiring agency in | ||
| the next generation. | ||
| ### Please write 3 words that best describe you, what you do, or what you care about | ||
| * Hacker | ||
| * Agency | ||
| * Pragmatic | ||
| ### What should we know about you that we didn't ask? | ||
| I get ridiculously excited when building things. | ||
| It's not uncommon to find me nerding out late at night learning a new | ||
| programming language (Rust is what's kept me busy recently | ||
| http://www.rust-lang.org/) or building a tool for myself. | ||
| While I mentioned hackathons (12-48 hour coding competitions) in my personal | ||
| summary, I didn't mention how much of a role they play in my life. In the past | ||
| year alone I've been to over 20 hackathons and, since late January 2015, I've | ||
| been at one every weekend. Through hackathons I've made nearly all of my | ||
| friends and gotten integrated into the technology industry. | ||
| * 1st Place at PennApps X, the University of Pennsylvania's hackathon, with | ||
| [Fuji](http://youtu.be/TjizJRxnUHo?t=42m24s) | ||
| * Youngest winner | ||
| * 1st Place at Hack for LA with | ||
| [ShelterConnect](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-la-hackathon-20140601-story.html) | ||
| * Featured in the LA Times (linked) | ||
| * 3rd Place at LAUNCH Hackathon with [Orbit](http://youtu.be/MY01d647S9Y) | ||
| (>1300 attendees) | ||
| * 1st Place at Hacking Generation Y with | ||
| [DownToZork.js](http://challengepost.com/software/downtozork-js) | ||
| * Runner-up at TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon with [Interactive | ||
| Markdown](http://techcrunch.com/video/interactive-markdown-presents-disrupt-sf-2014-hackathon/518404209/) | ||
| * 2nd Place at Burbank Game+Hack with [Amelia](https://github.com/zachlatta/amelia) | ||
| * 1st Place at Oink Hackathon with [Bitroad](https://github.com/zachlatta/bitroad) | ||
| ### Have you ever spoken at a TED or TEDx event before? | ||
| No. | ||
| ### If you have spoken at a TED or TEDx event(s), please list the name(s) here | ||
| N/A | ||
| ### You may submit one link that helps us get to know you (a video, an article, etc) | ||
| While it's not a traditional medium, I am a builder and I put most of what I | ||
| build on my GitHub: https://github.com/zachlatta. |
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| # Thiel Fellowship Application  | ||
| The Thiel Fellowship Council hopes that you’ll apply to the Thiel Fellowship. | ||
| We love learning about how people want to change the world and how applicants | ||
| would take the next two years to pursue their projects and dreams. Though we | ||
| only have 20 spots per year for fellowships, we’re helping hundreds of | ||
| applicants to change the world by connecting them to resources like mentoring, | ||
| internships, and inviting them to participate in our Thiel Foundation Summit | ||
| Community. We look forward to reading your application and being inspired by | ||
| your vision for the future. | ||
| Tell us a bit about yourself. | ||
| **Name:** | ||
| Zach Latta | ||
| **Email:** | ||
| zach@hackedu.us | ||
| **Date of Birth:** | ||
| 10/22/1997 | ||
| **I will be _ years old by December 31 of this year:** | ||
| 17 | ||
| **Currently I am (check all that apply):** | ||
| * [ ] In high school | ||
| * [ ] In college | ||
| * [ ] In a graduate or professional program | ||
| * [x] Stopped out (or dropped out) of school | ||
| * [ ] In vocational school | ||
| * [ ] A college graduate | ||
| * [x] Working full time on my own projects | ||
| * [ ] Otherwise employed | ||
| * [ ] Other | ||
| **Address:** | ||
| [redacted] | ||
| **Tell us a bit about yourself (Essay or Link to Video)** | ||
| http://youtu.be/q544kdNS7xk | ||
| **Profiles (Links to LinkedIn, Github, AngelList, etc.):** | ||
| GitHub: https://github.com/zachlatta | ||
| Website: http://zachlatta.com | ||
| **What project(s) have you worked on? (Links to projects or videos.)** | ||
| Yo | ||
| * Leading development of backend infrastructure and developer tools (API, | ||
| dashboard, etc) | ||
| * Managing >2 million users and building infrastructure to handle 86 million | ||
| requests per day | ||
| * #1 overall on both iOS and Android | ||
| * https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yo./id834335592?mt=8 | ||
| * https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.justyo | ||
| Football Heroes | ||
| * Programmer working on UI, engine, and internal toolchain programming | ||
| * >1.5 million users | ||
| * #1 in Games, #1 in Sports, #1 in Arcade, and #5 overall in Free Apps on the | ||
| App Store | ||
| * https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/football-heroes/id543009156?mt=8 | ||
| Grasp | ||
| * Open source learning-management-system for Common Core classrooms | ||
| * Technical lead | ||
| * Development sponsored by Loyola Marymount University | ||
| * $8000 grant from DirectTV | ||
| * https://github.com/graspapp/grasp | ||
| ShelterConnect | ||
| * Led development of website (AngularJS) and backend API server (Go and | ||
| PostgreSQL) | ||
| * Winner of Hack for LA | ||
| * LA Times Article: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-la-hackathon-20140601-story.html | ||
| Bitroad | ||
| * Anonymous online Bitcoin marketplace | ||
| * Grand prize at the Oink Hackathon | ||
| * Judges included John Paul Dejoria (co-founder of Paul Mitchell), CEO of | ||
| Oink, CEO of Jumpstart, and founder of Zencoder | ||
| * https://github.com/zachlatta/bitroad | ||
| texit | ||
| * Embed LaTeX anywhere online (ex. GitHub READMEs) | ||
| * Top 20 PennApps 2013 Fall | ||
| * https://github.com/texit/texit | ||
| Amelia | ||
| * Sends a text message to your parents every time you change location | ||
| * 2nd Place Overall at the Burbank Game+Hack | ||
| * https://github.com/zachlatta/amelia | ||
| Scribe | ||
| * Turns sketches of websites into real websites | ||
| * Made at PennApps 2014 Spring | ||
| * http://youtu.be/9ZAbQi_8y_A | ||
| **What do you want to work on over the next 2 years?** | ||
| I started a programming club at my high school last year because we didn't have | ||
| any computer science courses. Over the course of the year, spending an hour | ||
| each week, I helped 15 students learn programming. Near the end of the year, | ||
| something interesting happened: students started to build things. A group of | ||
| three students built an Android game without prior Java experience. One of | ||
| those students taught himself fractals by implementing them in JavaScript and, | ||
| today, he continues to use programming as a learning tool in the classroom. | ||
| Another student discovered his love for web development, landing his first | ||
| client when Summer vacation started. Last February, I brought him to the LAUNCH | ||
| hackathon with me, where his team got 3rd place and $33,000 in investment. | ||
| After observing initial success with the club, and after seeing other students | ||
| around the nation start clubs for the same reasons I did, I started hackEDU. | ||
| HackEDU is a nonprofit organization that helps high school students start and | ||
| lead programming clubs at their schools. We help students get their clubs off | ||
| the ground, connect them to sponsors, and build a global community of students | ||
| teaching other students how to code. | ||
| **Why spend your time on this?** | ||
| Most computer science education initiatives run into one of two problems: (1) | ||
| they simply don't have the distribution to reach a majority of students in the | ||
| world, or (2) the quality of the programs are low. With hackEDU, there is an | ||
| opportunity to reach millions of students and have a substantial impact on | ||
| individuals using a data-driven approach. Lots of people try to improve | ||
| education, but few realize it is actually an execution-intensive endeavor. | ||
| Using my first programming club as a minimum viable product, I learned how | ||
| students can teach other students programming. This past semester, I ran a | ||
| pilot program with 7 schools across 6 states to learn more about scaling an | ||
| effective computer science club. | ||
| I'm now at a point in my life where I'm in the best possible position to | ||
| continue iterating on the model and, once ready, to scale it to millions of | ||
| students. As a member of the target audience, I have established myself as a | ||
| leader. I run a community of nearly 2,000 high school developers and leaders in | ||
| the hackathon community[0]. Over the past six months alone, I organized three | ||
| high school hackathons, helped organize one of the largest hackathons on the | ||
| West Coast, and been to nine hackathons total (as a mentor to four of them). | ||
| [0] Facebook did a feature on us at https://www.facebookstories.com/stories/112524/hs-hackers | ||
| **Do you have any collaborators or cofounders? If yes, who are they?** | ||
| I have a team of volunteers in addition to a small mentor network that I've | ||
| assembled, in part, through the Fellowship community. | ||
| **Do you know anyone in our community? If yes, who? Have you been part of any | ||
| other incubator or entrepreneurship programs? If so, which ones?** | ||
| [redacted] | ||
| **Recommend a Friend to Apply (Email Address)** | ||
| [redacted] | ||
| **How did you hear about us (check all that apply)?** | ||
| * [x] From a current Thiel Fellow, Summiter, or Fellowship Mentor | ||
| * [ ] WIRED's Teen Technorati web series | ||
| * [x] At a hackathon | ||
| * [ ] News media: TV, radio, newspaper, magazine, or blog/online article | ||
| * [ ] Social media: Facebook, Twitter, etc. | ||
| * [ ] An event that a Fellow, staff member or mentor spoke at | ||
| * [ ] From a parent or teacher | ||
| * [ ] From a friend | ||
| * [ ] Other | ||
| **Interested in (check all that apply):** | ||
| * [x] Thiel Fellowship | ||
| * [x] Thiel Summit | ||
| * [ ] Internships/Hiring Opportunities |
| @@ -0,0 +1,87 @@ | ||
| # Thiel Fellowship Application Update Form | ||
| Please use this form to update us on your progress since first applying. If you | ||
| haven't already applied, please do so here: | ||
| http://www.thielfellowship.org/apply/ | ||
| This form can be used multiple times, though it's best to update us as major | ||
| changes occur. | ||
| ##### Name | ||
| Zach Latta | ||
| zach@hackedu.us | ||
| ## Project Update | ||
| Please sure if applicable. | ||
| ##### Link to website or demo | ||
| https://hackedu.us | ||
| ##### What's new? Please be concise and to the point! | ||
| Personally: | ||
| * Grand prize with Fuji (http://youtu.be/TjizJRxnUHo?t=42m24s) at PennApps Fall 2014. | ||
| * 1st place with DTZ.js (http://challengepost.com/software/downtozork-js) at | ||
| Hacking Generation Y | ||
| * 3rd place with Orbit (http://youtu.be/MY01d647S9Y) at the 2015 LAUNCH | ||
| Hackathon. | ||
| hackEDU: | ||
| * Ran pilot with 24 schools in the Fall | ||
| * Reached 1000 students | ||
| * 35% female (double national average in high school) | ||
| * 18% black/hispanic (3.5x national average in industry) | ||
| * At the two largest collegiate hackathons, PennApps X and MHacks V (>1000 | ||
| attendees each), half of the six winning teams were led by high school | ||
| students, all of whom are part of hackEDU. | ||
| * Currently in the fundraising and advisory board formation stage. | ||
| ##### Where do you, or your team, need the most support right now? Be specific and we'll try to help where we can. | ||
| We're currently raising $150k to bring us through the year, but my cofounder | ||
| and I are completely new to nonprofit fundraising and are both shooting in the | ||
| dark with more things than we'd like. Specifically, introductions to people who | ||
| have (1) closed large corporate sponsors, (2) extensive experience writing | ||
| grants, or (3) experience closing foundations would be particularly useful. | ||
| We're also figuring out our fiscal sponsorship situation so we can accept | ||
| donations and access to an attorney who has experience with nonprofit fiscal | ||
| sponsorships would probably save us lots of time and trouble down the road. | ||
| ## Project Metrics | ||
| Please share if applicable. | ||
| ##### Team size | ||
| 3 full-time, 2 part-time | ||
| ##### Number of users | ||
| 1,000 | ||
| ##### Total funding to date | ||
| $1k - Thiel Pitch Prize grant | ||
| ##### Total revenue | ||
| $0 | ||
| ##### Have you, or your team, participated in any incubators or other programs to further your project? If so, which ones? | ||
| Nope. | ||
| ##### Anything else you'd like to share? | ||
| I've been spending some of my (extremely limited) free time learning Rust | ||
| (http://www.rust-lang.org/). It's really quite cool and has a very interesting | ||
| way of approaching generics and memory management. |
| @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ | ||
| # Thiel Fellowship Application Update Form | ||
| Please use this form to update us on your progress since first applying. If you | ||
| haven't already applied, please do so here: | ||
| http://www.thielfellowship.org/apply/ | ||
| This form can be used multiple times, though it's best to update us as major | ||
| changes occur. | ||
| ##### Name | ||
| Zach Latta | ||
| zach@hackedu.us | ||
| ## Project Update | ||
| Please sure if applicable. | ||
| ##### Link to website or demo | ||
| https://hackedu.us | ||
| ##### What's new? Please be concise and to the point! | ||
| * Onboarded an additional 14 schools, expanding our reach to 38 schools and | ||
| 1,300 students. | ||
| * 12 of the 14 additional schools have a majority of students on free or | ||
| reduced lunch. | ||
| * 37% of our constituency is now black/hispanic (7x national average). | ||
| * [redacted] has committed to be a donor. | ||
| * We've finally opened up a bank account and are currently signing an agreement | ||
| with our (soon to be) fiscal sponsor so we can accept donations. | ||
| ##### Where do you, or your team, need the most support right now? Be specific and we'll try to help where we can. | ||
| Our primary focus right now is fundraising so we can continue building hackEDU. | ||
| Introductions to individuals or foundations that might be interested in | ||
| contributing would be _amazing_. We're currently focusing on private donors, | ||
| but starting to build relationships with foundations now would be helpful down | ||
| the line. | ||
| ## Project Metrics | ||
| Please share if applicable. | ||
| ##### Team size | ||
| 3 full-time, 2 part-time | ||
| ##### Number of users | ||
| 1,300 | ||
| ##### Total funding to date | ||
| ~$10k from private donors and corporate sponsors. | ||
| ##### Total revenue | ||
| ~$10k from private donors and corporate sponsors. | ||
| ##### Have you, or your team, participated in any incubators or other programs to further your project? If so, which ones? | ||
| Nope. | ||
| ##### Anything else you'd like to share? | ||
| As mentioned in my last update, I've been spending some of my (extremely | ||
| limited) free time learning Rust (http://www.rust-lang.org/). It's really quite | ||
| cool and has a very interesting way of approaching generics and memory | ||
| management. |
| @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ | ||
| Hi [name], | ||
| I saw your involvement in [thing] and wanted to reach out. | ||
| (OR POTENTIALLY LIST MUTUAL CONTACTS, SPECIFICALLY WHY YOU REACHED OUT TO THEM) | ||
| We've built hackEDU, a community of programming clubs with 1,300 students at 38 | ||
| high schools around the country. We think it's silly that students who love | ||
| music can join band, students who love sports can join an athletic team, but | ||
| students who want to learn to code have to go home and code alone. Our vision | ||
| is that every high school in the country will offer programming clubs where | ||
| students can code (and learn to code) with other like-minded students. | ||
| Until now we've bootstrapped this with $0 in donations. I dropped out of high | ||
| school in LA and moved to SF to grow this starting full-time ~5 months ago, and | ||
| we've funded it so far by doing contract programming work. We're working on our | ||
| 501(c)(3) status and could start writing grant proposals, but we've heard from | ||
| a number of folks like you that this vision really resonates with them and that | ||
| grant writing will just slow us down. | ||
| So that's why we're reaching out directly to ask for your help scaling this up, | ||
| to grow this to more schools and give the clubs more operational and financial | ||
| support. In addition to the current 1,000 students at 24 high schools, we run a | ||
| Facebook group with high school programmers from 1,000 other schools. The | ||
| immediate use of donations is to build the "playbook" for starting awesome | ||
| programming clubs at these schools, and then help students open programming | ||
| clubs at some of those 1,000 high schools when the next school year starts | ||
| (this year). | ||
| (MAYBE INCLUDE PARAGRAPH ABOUT SERVING UNDERPRIVILEGED/UNDERRPRESENTED | ||
| POPULATIONS) | ||
| Is this something you're interested in contributing to? If so, I'd love to talk | ||
| on the phone (and, if you're interested, put you in touch with some students | ||
| and faculty sponsors at the existing clubs). Our initial fundraising deadline | ||
| is April 11 (so we have time for some iterations before the current school year | ||
| ends). | ||
| \- [name] |
| @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ | ||
| Hey [name], | ||
| Hope all is well with you! [sentence about product] and I'm _floored_ by the | ||
| product. [product name] is awesome! | ||
| We're building hackEDU, a community of programming clubs with 1,300 students at | ||
| 38 high schools around the country. We think it's silly that students who love | ||
| music can join band, students who love sports can join an athletic team, but | ||
| students who want to learn to code have to go home and code alone. Our vision | ||
| is that every high school in the country will offer programming clubs where | ||
| students can code (and learn to code) with other like-minded students. | ||
| I'm wondering if you'd be interested in donating [product] to us as an in-kind | ||
| donation? [sentence about why it'd be useful]. Make School, Pipedrive, | ||
| Workflowy, and many others support our operations with their products and it | ||
| really helps us start more programming clubs with the best tools available. | ||
| Let me know what you think, it would make a huge difference for us! | ||
| \- [name] |
| @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ | ||
| We've built hackEDU, a community of programming clubs with 1,300 students at 38 | ||
| high schools around the country. We think it's silly that students who love | ||
| music can join band, students who love sports can join an athletic team, but | ||
| students who want to learn to code have to go home and code alone. Our vision | ||
| is that every high school in the country will offer programming clubs where | ||
| students can build things (and learn to build things) with other like-minded | ||
| students. At MHacks V and PennApps X, the two largest collegiate hackathons | ||
| with >1000 attendees flown in from schools including Stanford, MIT, Harvard, | ||
| and ETH Zurich, half of the winning teams were led by high school students, all | ||
| of whom are part of their local hackEDU chapter. |
| @@ -0,0 +1,62 @@ | ||
| Fundraising Notes | ||
| ================= | ||
| * We have just over two weeks to get $50k in the bank. | ||
| * I predict the best way to do this is approach a number of private donors. | ||
| * How do I identify a good potential private donor? | ||
| * Similar contributions in the past? | ||
| * Of what amount should we target? (range has been $5k-$10m) | ||
| * I should email as many people as physically possible until I get so many | ||
| responses I can't send any more outbound. | ||
| * Make a list of potential private donors to reach out to. | ||
| * Create a spreadsheet of people, with links to our Pipedrive entry for them. | ||
| * Spreadsheet should have our connection with them, if any. | ||
| * Could write out our method of reaching out to them (cold email, warm | ||
| connection) and the strategy we're using to market to them (hackathon | ||
| culture continuation, empowerment/changemaker, etc) | ||
| * Reach out to them and be very aggressive in the sales process. | ||
| * What goes next? Should I make the ask in the first call? Should I make the | ||
| ask before like in Quinn's email? | ||
| * Somehow close them and get money in the bank so we can actually do real | ||
| things. | ||
| * Perhaps having a timeline isn't actually what we should do, when in reality | ||
| we have no idea what we're doing. We should just keep pushing near exhaustion | ||
| until we either (1) get the money or (2) learn enough to create a timeline. | ||
| Focusing on the former will likely teach us the latter when we do more | ||
| fundraising in the future. | ||
| Questions | ||
| --------- | ||
| * How much do you usually close a private donor for? | ||
| * Grace | ||
| * How much has the average private donor contributed to other (similar?) | ||
| initiatives in the past? Is this a number we should be cogniscient of? | ||
| * Grace | ||
| * What's the process of closing a donor after that initial conversation? | ||
| * Grace | ||
| * Pierre | ||
| * Andrew | ||
| Reflection on past progress (or lack thereof) | ||
| --------------------------------------------- | ||
| * We wasted a lot of time trying to close our first fiscal sponsor. | ||
| * We shouldn't have spent so much time thinking about how we best wanted to | ||
| accept donations. We took too long and now we can't get money from one of | ||
| our sponsors because we don't yet have a fiscal sponsor aligned. | ||
| * We should have immediately gone to another local nonprofit and approached | ||
| them about being our fiscal sponsor instead of looking at the application | ||
| process for different foundations, especially knowing that they'd take | ||
| weeks to process. | ||
| * I failed to not notice this in the moment and tried to keep "making | ||
| progress", even thought we didn't know what "progress" was. | ||
| * I should do a better job separating what we tell people to what is actually | ||
| happening in my head. I think telling people that things were great got | ||
| into my head and started to convince me that they were going well and we | ||
| were progressing. | ||
| * It is paramount that I don't let this happen again. | ||
| * It's interesting how I learn by observation. I learned that file extensions | ||
| don't actually mean anything and are just a string by using Linux and | ||
| realizing that instead of being told/taught. I'll eventually get better at | ||
| fundraising. |