One month ago, our organizing team of 13 high school students from around Canada and the United States got together in Austin, Texas. Joining us that weekend were 70 other local high schoolers from Texas, as well as around 30 other students from all around the world—Switzerland, Singapore, Romania, New Zealand, and many other beautiful countries.
For the four months prior, we had been working towards organizing Scrapyard—a global high school hackathon happening in Austin, with over 60 satellite hackathons happening in cities around the world. It was real. Scrapyard was happening.
I remember quite distinctly, back in 2019 when I was first moving from Bangalore to Canada, I had dreamt of exactly this: coding clubs in middle and high school, friends with the same passion as mine, monthly hackathons with talented students, and a community of driven kids just doing the coolest stuff ever. Unfortunately, middle school in Toronto disappointed: no coding classes, no programming clubs, and no events and opportunities for me either. High school in Vancouver was marginally better: we had AP Computer Science classes and I got to start our first programming club… but it was only a handful of students who really enjoyed the sport. I had spent the last year building the British Columbia Youth Developer Collective and working towards creating that dream in British Columbia—but still, Scrapyard was going to be different.
Scrapyard Flagship — March 1-2
Amongst the jam-packed ~65 hours we got to spend together (of which we unfortunately only spent about 7 hours sleeping), we worked to create a truly beautiful space—close friends with a shared passion for continually learning and building, talented teenagers with a knack for trying new things out, and a true community of driven kids just doing the coolest thing ever. Endless energy drinks, crazy cowboy hats, midnight karaoke—we got to see dozens of teenagers come together from all around the world, all sharing their own stories: through code, through lightning talks, and through the thousands of conversations and friendships formed during that single weekend.
I would struggle to truly explain even a fraction of the activities and projects and events that happened during the hackathon—but thankfully Paolo’s documentary does a pretty good job of capturing the vibe of the event.
For the past year, Hack Club has given me immeasurable opportunity—through its online community of over 50,000 teenagers, through its constant pursuit of spreading creativity and bringing people together, and of course, through its in-person events in San Francisco and across Canada. From meeting the most inspiring students and friends to exploring the cities I’ve always dreamt of visiting, Hack Club has totally changed my life—both in the huge noticeable shifts in who I’m surrounded by and the opportunities I’ve been given access to, but also in the tiny changes in my outlook on things and how I approach the world.
Today, it’s unimaginable to even comprehend that Scrapyard will have the same chain reactions that other Hack Club events have had: dozens of people will find the best of friends just like I was fortunate to, many young students will get into coding and art and amazing hobbies they’ve been scared to get into, and two weeks after Scrapyard Flagship, many of our attendees will go on to run their own local Scrapyard events—each with their own little chain reactions that make this world a slightly better place.
Paraphrasing a message I wrote to Ruby when I returned to Vancouver after Scrapyard Flagship:
Because of Hack Club—each and every one of the 50,000 teenagers in the community, each and every student who attended Scrapyard, and each and every organizer who I was lucky to learn and work with—there was another Ruby out there who found their home at Hack Club that weekend… suddenly surrounded by a beautiful group of people: inspired to create new things, make new friends, and share their gifts with others
Maybe it’s the elementary school brothers who walked in with smiles and worked insanely hard to learn and meet new people (even winning a prize at the end!)… or maybe it’s the girl who walked in intimidated by the prospect of a hackathon before realizing how awesome it’s going to be and even getting her sister over. Maybe it’s the unsure Austin locals who joined without knowing what to expect and then proceeded to have the best weekend of their lives, or maybe it’s the dozens of international students who flew through 20 hours of flights after waiting for this event for many weeks.
We did this over the weekend, we’re going to help others do it two weeks from now, and for weeks and months and even years from today, this is going to reverberate and continue to have a huge positive impact all around the world.
Scrapyard Satellite — March 15
And well, so we did. Two weeks later, on March 15th, our team at the British Columbia Youth Developer Collective hosted Scrapyard Vancouver—bringing together 85 students from all around the province to build stupid scrappy projects, and also breaking our previous record of British Columbia’s biggest youth hackathon. In fact, Scrapyard Vancouver was one of the largest Scrapyard satellites in the world that weekend—beating some of the biggest cities in the world. Through all of the work we put into BCYDC over the past year, our hackathons are now on par with the cities: New York, San Francisco, Toronto, and so on.
At that exact same moment, over 60 Scrapyard satellite hackathons took place around the world, each bringing together dozens of local students to create something new. On one weekend, across a span of just 48 hours, over 4500 students globally came together: to make a cool project, to meet new friends, and to try something entirely new.
Special shoutout to Capital Region NY 🇺🇸, Lisbon 🇵🇹, Bengaluru 🇮🇳, Srinagar 🇮🇳, Sharjah 🇦🇪, Victoria 🇨🇦, and all the other events I had the specific privilege of serving.
Thank you to Hack Club and the entire Scrapyard organizing team for such an insane opportunity :) From moving the entire flagship event from Los Angeles to Austin (Palisades fire 😔) to helping so many organizers run their own events, organizing Scrapyard was truly a feat. And of course, a special shoutout to Ruby for carrying so much—from merchandise to logistics to organization to customer support, and most importantly, for holding us all accountable.
Thank you to our amazing team at the British Columbia Youth Developer Collective for pulling through with Scrapyard Vancouver—especially Vuk, I can’t wait to see how you grow BCYDC next year :)
Thank you to the amazing students who attended Scrapyard Flagship: Niko, Tongyu, Kai Ling, Vivian, Aslesh, Meghana, Jonathan, Selena, Arnav, and the dozens of other super cool people I got to learn from. And thank you to everyone who attended Scrapyard Vancouver… I can’t wait to see everyone continue cooking up the craziest stuff over the next few years.
If you’re still interested in reading, I also wrote Air Travel on my flight to Scrapyard :)
Afterword
I’m turning 18 in exactly 7 days and its quite a strange thing to even consider. I’ve spent the last decade trying to grow up and be an adult; always working my hardest to do things outside of my capabilities and be seen as more than just a child. But now, as I get closer and closer to 18, it is a strangely frightening prospect—so I thought I’d take it as an opportunity to spend some time and write.
So yeah! Here I am sitting in the backyard of a 15-million-dollar hacker house in Palo Alto—just after wrapping up another 20-hour day at K-Scale. I think things have worked out pretty well so far 🙂 I can’t wait to see where it goes.
Thank you Hack Club, thank you Canada, and thank you for my amazing friends and family :)
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