Sobre esta idea
Students are hungry to learn how to put a dent in the universe. Not all the students, but the curious and self starting. With Kreative Horizon, I am working on giving students a platform of hackathons, pitch competitions, design jams, workshops, and more to empower them to build the future of tomorrow today.
I started Kreative, LLC in 2018, and ran my first hackathon in high school in 2019 called BuildChicago. Over 75 students from the area came together to solve problems and have fun doing it. After that event ended, I built a team, secured a few more sponsors, and was working to run BuildNewYork, BuildTheValley (in San Francisco), SheBuildsSF (the largest all female hackathon in SF at the time), and BuildChicago 2020.
But, after securing a venue in SF, COVID-19 struck and my dreams were put on hold. After a while of going to school, trying a few more ventures, and getting a “real” job, I ran a new hackathon at Iowa State (HackIowaState). I was aiming for 15 students…. We had 54 check in. This was the first major hackathon at ISU since 2019 and students loved it.
Now, we are organizing 6 new events to start the Kreative Builders League, the second “hackathon league” in the country:
HackIowaState v2 (100+ students)
DataISU v1 (first datathon at ISU ever for 40+ students)
HackIowaState v3 (130+ students)
BuildDSM (new student hackathon in Des Moines for 100+ students)
DesignJamISU v1 (first design jam at ISU for 25+ students)
PitchAmes v1 (50+ pitch competition)
Plus, we launched the first student organization, Horizon Builders Club, at Iowa State which will be organizing students to go to other events as a community, learn out-of-the-classroom skills through student-led workshops, and help them launch and organize new Builder events. We plan on expanding the club to schools in Iowa, then the nation.
Last semester we earned about $650 in sponsorships, and now we have over $15,000 in secured sponsorships, and we’re working on more accounts as we speak.
Our goal is to build and expand “the league”, which is essentially a partnership between Kreative Horizon and student events. We would provide funding, coaching, support, and resources in exchange for, what I like to call, “sponsor real estate”. This way, we can give our sponsors even more opportunities to recruit students and gain awareness without “owning” the tiring process of running each event. It’s hard for a single sponsor to go to 50 or a 100 events across the county, contact them, negotiate, and then manage that process until the event is over. Instead, they will come to Kreative Horizon and with one single contract, have goals executed across the country (and then the world!).
Impacto
There are two parties that benefit the most from Kreative Horizon and our builders league: students and sponsors.
Students get the opportunity to build real things outside of the classroom, getting the most useful education: experience. I know that as a student myself, events like these breathe new life into the work I am doing and into what I am studying at Iowa State. Hackathons give me the chance to learn new skills, meet new people, and potentially walk away with a new side project/business idea. Pitch competitions (like 5x5!) grant me the chance to practice my sales skills and test the ideas that I believe in. Students from past Kreative Horizon hackathons have come up to me and said that our events have literally reinvigorated their spirits to keep building. Some said our events were the one of the most important experiences in their lives. The impact of Kreative Horizon is very real and very tangible.
Sponsors benefit from getting to access one of the most competitive and hard to reach pools of talent: students that genuinely care about learning/building. As society inches closer and closer to digitalization, AI, and being technology-first, more and more firms are going to need to hire tech talent. This will include but is not limited to software engineering, UI/UX design, project managers, data scientists, electrical engineers, and more. While many recruiting methods work, it's difficult for recruiters to pin point exactly which students *care*. However, with Kreative Horizon, we will have access to events across the nation that are partnered with the Kreative Builders League that attract the brightest, innovation-first students across campuses everywhere. By working with us, they will be able to launch an in-person, tight-knit recruiting campaign across the country with just one partner.
Lo que haré con 5.000 dólares
We will use the prize money to do two things: 1) bring on 3 new partner events that we do not run in-house, and 2) open up 2 more Horizon Builders Club (on-campus student organizations that act as liaisons between our business and students on campus) at DMACC and Drake. We will need $2000 to open up the new HBC chapters. These funds will be used for reimbursing fuel for traveling to campuses, food and drinks for student meetings, marketing materials such as stickers, foam boards, buttons, etc, and grant money to help these campuses start their own hackathons. For bringing on 3 new partners, we will need $1000 per partner ($250 emergency budget, $350 traveling expenses to send a Kreative Horizon staff member to assist the partner event organizers, $400 in marketing and programming for each partner).
Enlaces
About Armaan Gupta
I've been an entrepreneur since elementary school, starting with selling pens and then second-hand iPhones in middle school. Later, I ventured into making music beats online. Despite a failed gaming studio, I found my passion for hackathons in high school. I started BuildChicago, bringing together 75 students, and expanded my business, Kreative, to organize hackathons nationwide. However, COVID-19 led me to pivot to web design with Kreative Dreamflow. Currently, I study Management Information Systems at Iowa State University, work as a Software Engineer at John Deere, and continue organizing hackathons in Des Moines while running Kreative Dreamflow. I'm excited to keep building innovative solutions for the future.
