a hackerspot forcurious builders

so, hackskool.

it's not even a "school" to me, it's literally like a friend i deeply cherish.

when i think of hackskool, i think of the late-night idea jams, the times i sat in quiet frustration after a failed prototype, the raw and unbreakable bond i shared with the early builders, meeting so many of you at sessions and jams, and of course all the countless messages where you shared your wildest dreams.

all in all, these past years building this have been the most meaningful of my life.

but today, instead of stepping back, i'm doubling down.

hackskool is about to become the clearest, straightest path from raw curiosity to real-world success.

i was born into a middle-class family in india. nothing fancy, no big legacy, no powerful connections. just a small room with a desk covered in wires, circuit boards, half-broken tools, and a mind that refused to stop asking "why not?"

when i was a kid, i didn't care much about grades. i was too busy taking apart ceiling fans to see how the motor worked or figuring out how to make a toy car move faster by hacking it with scrap batteries. at the time, it felt like play. but looking back, that was my first brush with building things that didn't exist yet.

as i grew up, i drifted further from the typical path. while most of my friends were memorizing pages for exams, i was sketching drone designs on the backs of my notebooks. while others joined coaching centers, i was experimenting with robotics kits and learning to code late into the night, often by the dim light of my desk lamp when everyone else was asleep.

eventually, i found myself at isef in 2023, standing in front of some of the brightest young minds in the world. i had carried my prototypes, my stories, my sleepless nights — and realized that the things i once built in solitude could stand proudly on a global stage. it was validation that the path i'd chosen — messy, unconventional, driven by pure curiosity — was not just valid, but powerful.

but here's the thing: i wasn't alone in that realization. there were hundreds of other kids there, each with their own story of late nights, failed experiments, and breakthrough moments. we were all proof that you don't need permission to build the future. you just need the courage to start.

that's what hackskool is really about. it's not about teaching you to code or giving you a certificate. it's about giving you permission to be curious. to fail. to build something that doesn't exist yet.

we've built this as a place where the weird kids — the ones who take apart their toys, who ask too many questions, who see problems everywhere and can't help but try to solve them — can find each other. where you can turn your obsessions into expertise, your ideas into impact.

over the past few years, i've watched our community grow from a handful of builders to hundreds of young people across the globe, each working on projects that matter to them. i've seen 16-year-olds ship products that thousands of people use. i've seen kids from small towns in india collaborate with peers in silicon valley. i've seen friendships form over shared code repositories and late-night debugging sessions.

but most importantly, i've seen young people realize that they don't have to wait. they don't have to wait for college, for a job, for someone to give them permission. they can start building now.

the world needs more builders. not just people who can code, but people who can see what's missing and have the audacity to try to build it. people who understand that the future isn't something that happens to them — it's something they create.

that's what we're building at hackskool. not just a program, but a movement. a community of young builders who refuse to wait for permission.

if you're reading this and you feel that itch — that need to build, to create, to solve problems that others ignore — then you're already part of this community. the question isn't whether you're ready. the question is: what are you going to build?

the tools are there. the community is there. the mentors are there.

all that's missing is you.

this is hackskool. this is your dojo. let's get to work.

— samarth.