Sometimes good things come out of bad experiences. That may be the case for three University of Virginia students who plan to spend their summer sharing skills with people who want to start charities, businesses or not-for-profits.
Like most UVA students, Yosh Tekriwal, Allisson Garrett and Andy Page were out of town when white supremacists descended on Charlottesville last summer. They were horrified by what they saw on TV and resolved to do something in response.
“The three of us got together and we decided let’s start organizing charity running events across the South to raise money for organizations who are doing really cool social and racial justice work,” Page recalls.
But Page and Garrett discovered starting something new wasn’t so easy.
“There’s a lot of skills that we didn’t know, and we had to spend a ton of time learning them,” he explains.
“Graphic design, digital marketing, web design, software engineering,” adds Garrett.
“So we wanted to make a class that taught people all these skills that they needed to know to be able to start their own charity, run their own business, run their own non-profit,” Page explains.
They call their program Satellite, because people anywhere in the world can enroll in the 12-week online course. Already they claim to have a hundred students from as far away as China and Germany.
In addition to learning practical skills,Tekriwal hopes those who enroll in Satellite boot camp will develop an attitude.
“It’s not going to be perfect on the first attempt, but it’s going to get there, because you’re listening to people as you build it.”
While they’re skill-building, Garrett says students will have a chance to practice on an enterprise they’d actually like to run.
“Creating a whole brand for that company – logos, materials, flyers and posters, so it’s kind of like a choose-you-own adventure kind of project.”
Then, some will be offered a five-week internship with a Charlottesville not-for-profit or start-up, while others may choose to launch a blog or podcast.
“You learn best by building things that matter to you, whether that’s a podcast or a blog or a fundraiser or a subscription service, it doesn’t matter if you reach one person or a hundred people or if you raise $5 or $5,000. What matters is that you tried and that you did it, and from that you learned.”
And Terkiwal adds that this program may give people a short-term way to discover their passion, noting the educational journey is not all about getting a job. It’s about finding yourself and what you want to do.
For more information, go to www.SatelliteBootCamp.com
