Three teenage techies make an impact

After having carried out technological innovations of their own, Grade XI students Barathraam Gurumoorthy Sriram, Prakash T. and Nitish Kumar get 35 other teens to follow their example. They brought the non-profit Hack Club on board to power their free hackathon for school students on November 14

Three high schoolers get 35 others of their age to spend Children's Day "prototyping". On November 14, three Grade X1 students, Barathraam Gurumoorthy Sriram, Prakash T. and Nitish Kumar organised a free gaming hackathon for school students at a corporate office in Saligramam, where the participants learnt to make their own video games and publish it for free.

They were the masterminds of Hack Club Haven - Chennai, as the event was called. The event was not going to be a whisper. It was going to be loud, drawing attention, and for that to happen, the three high schoolers brought Hack Club on board. Hack Club is a global non-profit that encourages teenagers to make cool software and hardware projects. Winning the the confidence of the Club and getting them to collaborate with them is no mean achievement. During the last summer vacation, Barathraam's laptop keyboard crashed and instead of buying a new one he decided to make one on his own. He took the plunge as maker of things, having been inspired by hundreds of projects on Hack Club executed by teenagers. "They fund you and even guide you," says the student of Akshar Arbol International School. He has participated in projects organised by Hack Club in the past and has been reviewed by them. Nitish got introduced to Hack Club to design his own website, but today is more keen on the hardware part of the technology. Prakash has been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug since the age of 12 and does freelance works for startups. On Slack, Barathraam met Prakash and Nitish, both studying at Heartfulness International School - Omega Branch, and the three got together to organise the meetup two months ago. "The platform has incentivised me to make school projects, I wanted to give back, and so was excited to join Prakash and Nitish," says Barathraam, adding that he does innovations using CADD. The three were thrilled to see the number of students that had signed up for the free session. From networking with family and friends to finding a venue and identifying mentors who are ready to oversee them, the trio took on a truckload of responsibilities to make this event happen. Every participant who publishes a game on GitHub and itch.io also gets a free t-shirt. For details, visit https://haven.hackclub.com/chennai