[play this track as you read this]

by: samarth.

published: july 2025.

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 i’ve decided to step back from hackskool and fully pass the torch.

this means from this day onwards, hackskool is… no longer the same.

this might come as a shock.

i know many of you reading this live and breathe nerdwork.

you love what we built together.

it’s become part of your identity.

plus…

it probably makes no sense — didn’t we just launch our most ambitious cohort ever?

it’s true. right now, hackskool is the strongest it’s ever been, with its community, its jams, its labs, and its wildest ideas coming to life.

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 a moment that changed me forever.

after that, i joined the knowledge society (tks), and then the roote fellowship. these pushed me to think not just about what i could build for myself, but how i could help others grow. i learned that true impact isn’t about your own milestones — it’s about the ripple effects you create around you.

for a long time, i built things for me. i chased curiosity for the thrill. i proved to myself again and again that i could push limits. but somewhere along that journey, something shifted. i started asking a harder question: what if i stopped just climbing my own mountains and started building a basecamp where others could prepare for their own expeditions?

that question stayed with me. it kept me up at night. and that’s where hackskool was born.

i didn’t want to create another online course or lecture series that you forget the moment you close the tab. i wanted to build a dojo — a place where young minds don’t just consume knowledge, but transform it into something real.

a space where curiosity is celebrated, where questions are more important than answers, and where failure isn’t hidden but worn as a badge of honor.

nerdwork school isn’t a school. it isn’t a university. it isn’t a bootcamp where you get spoon-fed and walk away with a shiny certificate.

it’s a dojo — a space for relentless practice, raw experimentation, and deep, messy growth. here, you don’t just watch tutorials and call it a day. you build. you launch. you break things and learn to fix them. you share your unfinished, half-baked, barely-working projects, and get feedback from real-world senseis — not "teachers," but people on the same unpredictable path as you.

there are no grades here. no gold stars, no final exams. you won’t be punished if you fail — you’ll get a chance to reason it out, patch the gaps, understand the why behind every misstep. nothing is given; everything is earned. you learn to grant yourself permission. to trust your gut when no one else does. to be okay with starting messy, staying messy, and iterating endlessly.

because the real world doesn’t give you neat rubrics. it throws chaos at you, and you either adapt or get left behind.

i learned that the real game is not finite. it’s not about the highest score, the best grade, the most followers. it’s an infinite game — one you play to keep evolving, to keep contributing, to keep pushing what you think is possible.

i also learned that life doesn’t hand you a clear map. there’s no guaranteed path to “impact” or “success.” what you do have is your internal north star — that quiet voice telling you to explore, to question, to build. it’s on you to listen.

people often ask me how i stayed motivated with no fancy labs, no obvious resources, no mentors down the street. the truth is, i practiced anti-fragility without even knowing it. i got stronger every time a circuit failed. i learned patience when a code snippet crashed my system. i learned to laugh at setbacks — they were my tuition fees for real learning.

stoicism taught me to focus on what i could control — my effort, my mindset, my response to chaos. when the world felt overwhelming, i came back to first principles: break big problems down to their core truths, question every assumption, rebuild from the ground up.

this is what hackskool stands for.

a place where you’re not just a student — you’re a builder, an explorer, a contributor. a place where you can share the books that changed your worldview, the weird ideas that keep you up at night, the half-finished projects that might just become world-changing someday.

a place where i’ll share everything i know — the frameworks that kept me focused, the mental models that kept me grounded, the insights i picked up from books, experiments, failures, small wins.

if i, a kid from a middle-class home, can think beyond the obvious, can dream of solving problems bigger than myself, can turn kitchen-table experiments into real prototypes — then why can’t you?

you don’t need permission to start. you don’t need to wait for that imaginary moment when you feel “ready.” you start messy, you start scared, you start before you think you’re qualified. that’s how every real adventure begins.

nerdwork school is for those tired of playing small games. for those who believe real learning happens when you get your hands dirty. for those who know building something meaningful isn’t a straight path, but a wild, unpredictable, deeply personal journey.

i want this to be a living, breathing space where you don’t just build tech, but build character. where you’re not afraid to share your moonshot ideas. where you find collaborators who push you. where you become the type of person who can handle any storm — and come out stronger.

this isn’t about me anymore. it’s about passing the torch. it’s about seeing you take that fire and run further than i ever could alone. it’s about building a new generation of thinkers and makers who believe if they can dream it, they can create it.

so here’s my invitation. come with your questions, your half-formed ideas, your messy sketches. come with your skepticism, your big dreams, your quiet doubts. come with the belief that you can matter — because you can.

let’s build a place where we don’t just talk about the future. we shape it. together.

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

— samarth.