01 / projects
The problem: studying is solitary by default, and motivation is treated as a personal failing instead of a design flaw. People don't lack tools — they lack someone expecting them to show up.
The product: book a study session the way you'd book a court — a real time, a real place, matched with people who share your course or your goal. The booked commitment is the engine: a person is waiting for you.
- Social accountability is research-backed — booked co-working measurably lifts follow-through.
- Existing tools match or book. The gap is doing both, in person.
- Starting where density is unbeatable: thousands of students within a ten-minute walk.
- Validating by hand before writing serious code — if humans won't show up, software won't fix it.
The insight: community volunteering had been reduced to hours and signatures — something to finish rather than value. The first version solved logistics: matching volunteers to opportunities. It worked. It also missed the point.
The pivot: mentors pushed us to see that access wasn't the real problem — volunteers didn't feel connected to the people they served. So we redesigned Hestia around listening: volunteering begins with the community's own voices — their needs, in their words — before anyone signs up.
- Taught me the most valuable product lesson I own: listen before you build.
- Tested the redesign in the field with real volunteers and real institutions.
Three years in MEET — an MIT-affiliated program combining a serious computer science curriculum with entrepreneurship, taught in English by MIT-affiliated instructors.
Then I went back on the other side of the room: as a CS teaching assistant — running labs, explaining concepts, and debugging the next cohort's first real code. Teaching something is the fastest way to find out whether you actually understand it.
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