Back in 2013, Sasha Hoffman looked around at the tech community and saw an opportunity to bring people together across the Boston innovation ecosystem to support an incredibly inspiring cause – BUILD. After relocating from California to Boston, she joined BUILD’s board, and was out most nights each week attending events, trying to broaden her network and dive into the tech community. At event after event, she started to realize:
- Team members from Boston tech companies were hungry to get involved with nonprofits, but didn’t know where to start
- Nonprofits weren’t tapping into this community of passionate professionals, primarily because there wasn’t a structured way to connect
- People were going to fundraisers regularly, but would leave each event with little information about the cause they were supporting and how important it was
- At each event, many of the same people were present – founders and c-suite executives – few people earlier in their careers were jumping in
Sasha had been to plenty of sports charity and social networking events, but nothing that really spanned the entire tech community, uniting people in a unique way around a motivating cause. No one was breaking the traditional mold to make a difference.
This got her thinking. She knew many of the folks in the startup community were talented well beyond the workplace – former college athletes, spelling bee champs, you name it. There was a natural competitive fire in all of them, and a desire to do good in the community. So she conceived of an olympics-style event, the BUILD Entrepreneur Games, with a few key goals:
- Bring together startups, investors, large tech companies and community supporters all under one roof for a night of team building, fun and competition
- Feature a variety of mental and athletic challenges so there was something for everyone, and structure it in a way that everyone’s contribution would makes an impact on each competing team’s score
- Make sure everyone from engineers and designers to CEOs and EAs were present, capturing all the people that represent the innovation economy
- Shine light on all the great work BUILD does for youth entrepreneurship in Boston, and inspire people to get involved
And so, the first BUILD Entrepreneur Games were born! A fun filled night of entrepreneurs supporting entrepreneurs. This year, we have our eye on over 700 people attending to raise over $100K for BUILD.
Mark your calendar, and SAVE THE DATE – June 25th!
