Each week Apollo hosts a number of online events. On Thursdays there’s a Fireside that keys into a syllabus and features special guests. The syllabus was created during the previous Kernel cohort. That could be described as the genesis hackathon. Apollo is the second in a series growing out of Kernel.
Before each Fireside we have homework; we’re required to read a specific learning module in the syllabus. Each module is subdivided into a topic, Crafted Reading, and Curated Material. Prepping for the meeting doesn't take long. But digging into to the curated media can eat up a ton of time. It's all intriguing.
The text in the syllabus is exceptional. Its thoughtful, inspiring, gently coaxing language is a pleasure to read.
During this second week we continued networking to find a teammate with backend skills but to no avail. Backend devs are in demand…
On Tuesday there was an elevator pitch session where we presented our ClimateDataPool concept and use case. That was beneficial in getting our project known within the cohort. Seeing other pitches was cool too. Following was a ‘Hypersprint’ with Deep Work:
“Deep Work takes a design-driven approach to rapidly align cross-functional teams for data-driven growth.”
It was excellent. The material didn't exactly apply to our situation as we already have a product but it was a stimulating session. We were given homework: do interviews to get feedback about your product. Take notes. Ultimately the results should guide your product decisions.
On Thursday there was a Fireside focused on “Meaning and Value” (Module 1). Vivek showed a listing of 60+ projects participating in this hackathon. He explained that these first two weeks are to get to know each other. The next four are the run phase.
On Friday we did two interviews. One was with Milensu, a Kernel fellow who works at the United Nations in Rome. She's not a techie but has experience in large institutions and provided astute conceptual input. The other was with Josh, the CTO of creol.io, another climate oriented Apollo project. He provided insightful operational and technical feedback. Many thanks to both! 🙏