what are you working on rn? 1-2 sentences is fine

buildillinois, a community of founders, artists, and creatives at uiuc.

how far along is your project rn in terms of numbers?

400 students have attended at least one of our events

tell us all about any milestones you've hit or things you're proud of in the last 6-12 months in relation to your work, hobby, and/or career.

i'm a freshman on campus, and we started last september with nothing. we put together a hackathon that raised 120k+ in prizes/had 200+ attendes in our first two months, and since then have been continually growing our community. hosted fireside chats with speakers like cory levy, landon campbell, nick linck, paul hsu, and more. host weekly co-working sessions called sundays. in talks with drive capital, z fellows, on deck, entrepreneur first, and more.

random -- whats the most viral thing you've ever created/done? tell us the story + how many people it got to!

tweeted about our dinner event with cory levy. got 12k impressions, and a few cool vcs reached out to learn more.

i know its hard af but how would u best describe yourself?

marketer, entrepreneur, writer, and designer

when it comes to building stuff, what are you good at? what are you confident doing?

• i'm confident in my ability to ideate/iterate
• i'm good at design
• don't know anything technical at all, so i'm working on becoming a 10x engineer/developer/builder

imagine someone on the street pulls you aside and says "what's your life story in 10-15 bullet points?"

• was born in a chicago suburb, moved to san diego when i was 2 and have been there since
• loved legos, diy crafts, and rude goldberg machines in elementary school. started a blog about my lego creations, did fll which was a lego ev3 competition.
• loved science olympiad in middle school, and biking around. really enjoyed learning about thermodynamics and building roller coasters with wood. started 2 clubs: pc building, where we raised enough money to build a pc which we sold (also built one of my own). and ksp club, which was a space-related video game we all played.
• started debate in high school, which became my life. spent all of freshman-junior year grinding, ultimately qualified to toc 3 years in a row. learned a ton, got pretty good at writing.
• also ran a hackathon. pretty fun, learned a lot about marketing. got 600+ participants from 28 countries, raised over 500k+ in sponsorships.