the neodev league was established overnight through one random discord voice call in may of 2024.

here's the truth: the boys and i just attended a poorly run hackathon, and we didn't feel pleased by the experience. there was a clear lack of mentorship, spirit, and the distinct magic that drew all of us to spend a whole weekend in front of a screen in the first place. we felt that we could do better, even as high school students.

we were all zombies the next day at school but it was worth it.

the blueprint we designed was unique: a competition between all high schools in our region. we essentially pioneered a never-seen-before format:

our excitement quickly faded when we realized how difficult it actually was to start a tech event from scratch. in reality, we were just inexperienced high school students with zero connections.

that summer, we spent many late nights planning, hours on call designing neodev's landing page and participant dashboard to give it a unique feel, and met up in-person countless times in random uwaterloo rooms, investing in a vision that went against the status quo.

but what was this all for? was the grind going to be worth it? as our cold emails for sponsorship kept being ghosted, we questioned our methods. we really did. this was probably the first time i felt dejected in something i had so much conviction in. it was clear that the boys all felt the same way. hence operations became stale for weeks at a time.

but we kept showing up and hit a breakthrough in early september.

as summer vacation rolled to an end, the team mutually decided to spend a weekend at uwaterloo to lock in. so we bought shawarma platters and ice capps and locked ourselves in the earth sciences building.

as we discussed our lack of progress, we collectively knew that we were missing something. as we spent the day applying to grants, shooting some promotional reels for instagram, and working on our website, it clicked.

our event was unconventional by definition. we weren't just trying to run another ordinary hackathon, but rather, chasing a vision to inspire the next generation of young builders. nobody told us that we had to run an event. at the end of the day we were a group of high school students that invested precious time over the summer to craft an experience people would never forget. that was our story.

that was our story.

upon reflecting on the bigger picture of who we were, we decided that we had to pitch to startup founders. if anybody would see eye-to-eye with our vision, it would be ceos.

the pieces started falling together. in mid september, we secured a $1k grant from ycf and secured a partnership with the wrdsb, our school board. they reposted neodev on all their mediums, which was huge, as we began reaching a network of ~20k high school students in the region.

in the meantime, we also received sponsorship from both domino's and best buy, but the best was yet to come.

as we continued sending tailored emails to startup founders, balancing the heavy workload from senior year of high school, we came into contact with roger kirkness. this man single-handedly saved neodev.

his response:

roger didn't attend university and is the ceo of a tech startup, convictional, here in the waterloo region. he fully believed in our vision.

not only did he give us $1k, but he offered us the den1880 co-working space in uptown waterloo—a costly $8k+ state-of-the-art venue if we were to pay upfront.

and to realize that if the stars didn't line up, perhaps if roger decided not to check his sales inbox, or if he thought that it was spam, neodev might not have happened at all. we were lucky. something in the subject line, or perhaps in the first sentence, or our mission, propelled roger to craft us a genuine response, when 99% of other founders ignored the email. marginal differences.

goes to show that luck is required for success, but you have to put yourself in the position to get lucky.

october 26, the big day finally arrived. 100+ high school students showed up bright and early. it honestly felt special to see people lining up outside the entrance. making an impact on the community is an unbelievable feeling, would highly recommend.

there were many ups and downs, but neodev ran smoothly overall. many things cannot be put into words, and this experience was one of them. go watch the vlog.

neodev blossomed from a random idea at 3am to one of the most valuable experiences of my high school journey. the software side of neodev was minimal, but the social impact made neodev my most meaningful project yet.

neodev serves as a reminder to differentiate. we would not have caught roger's eye if our vision wasn't unique.

again, i focused more on the story of neodev rather than the actual event. genuinely watch the vlog if you're invested, the vibes were immaculate.

aspire to be different.