TKS Session 11: Focus Hackathon + Velocity Session 2

Already onto our second hackathon in TKS, and we’ve only done 11 sessions. This session was mainly a work session to get our hackathon projects done and work with our groups. We also had our Velocity session 2, and I will go more into that.

My intention for this session was to leave knowing that my team and I are on the same page, and we have everything organized for our hackathon project.

For velocity, we did some housekeeping and checked in with how everyone was doing keeping up with the requirements such as daily updates, weekly tracker, meeting 1 external person each week, and the weekly learnings like person/mindset of the week, along with any other requirements. We then discussed some of the events that we went to this weekend. Some kids went to DevFest, while others such as myself went to the Precision Health and Longevity Summit, which you can read my post covering it here.

After some housekeeping, we then got to discussing the learnings and other tasks that needed to be done. The person of the week was Naval, an entrepreneur and investor who has his own company AngelList, a company to connect investors with startups and vice versa. He’s been part of early investing rounds with companies such as Uber and Twitter, along with many others. We listened to a podcast where he talked about his life, the habits he formed, and the beliefs he has. One thing that stood out to me from that podcast was how he mentioned that he only surrounds himself with people whom he knows he can be 100% himself with. The meaning behind this also connects to a mindset he practices, living in the present moment. If he can’t be himself around the people he’s with, he then may be stressing about the things he’s said or what he will say next, which isn’t being in the present moment but rather occupying your mind with other things to think about. When you don’t need to worry about how you will be thought of or judged in whatever situation you’re in, then you can focus on what’s happening around you in that moment.

The mindset of the week was gratitude/appreciation. Because that was the mindset of the week, I had this in my mind as I was going about my day. I found that because I was thinking about gratitude, it was easier for me to be aware of what I was grateful for and find a newfound appreciation for whatever I had or whatever situation I was in. It was easier to be grateful and it made me feel happier. Now, in my daily updates, I include a part where I share one thing I’m grateful for, because not only did I enjoy practicing gratefulness that week, but it also felt like something that needed to be done and could not be overlooked.

We then discussed some stuff highlighting Yuval, author of the book Sapiens, but we had to cut it short because the session was starting.

For the focus hackathon session, we had mentors come in who were able to sit down with our groups and give us advice on what we were working on. Our designated mentor was Inês Bartilotti, who works with Innovate Calgary, and she was very helpful in giving us questions to think about and refine our project. We also got to work with mentors Brett P. Elder and Carter Huber, who also helped us by listening to our project idea and helping us identify holes that needed to be closed.

Co-founder Navid also stopped by for the session to act as a mentor and give the teams tips on improving their projects. He stopped us all at one moment to walk us through the importance of what we are doing at TKS and the importance of the focus hackathon by taking us through understanding how valuable developing your skills is, how having one skill can open doors, and how having many skills can open many doors. The idea was to explain to us that these kinds of projects and everything we do during our focus helps us develop a skill that can be transferable in the real world depending on what we want to do, and how we should focus on developing our skills to open more doors and have more opportunities, and even create our own opportunities that didn’t exist before.

In our focus hackathon group with Sophia Dhami, Arissai Filleul, and Joel Almadas, we decided to use phage therapy to target melanoma cancer cells. This would work by genetically engineering the phages’ bacterial receptors to identify melanoma cells and genetically alter the phages’ infection substance to carry different drugs that target melanoma, that way those drugs can be delivered straight to the source rather than the patient having to go through the process of chemotherapy or other standard treatments, which may take more of a toll on their body.

Here is the video we created for the focus hackathon:

There were definitely things that we could have improved on as a group, but the idea was fun to work on and it was cool to dive deep and explore the different treatments that may one day revolutionize how we go about treating cancer and other diseases or illnesses.

Overall, it was a really eye-opening and productive session because we were able to get feedback and advice on how to make our project better before having to submit it, along with getting to refine our project and make progress as a group!