OAK

http://www.oak.ai

An initiative to create meaning.

Help people develop the courage to act on ideas, and having a healthy disregard of the impossible.

Asking ‘what if’ responding with ‘yes, and..’
Having that optimistic approach to try things to see what works and what doesn’t work.

Increase rate of learning, by trying many things  and figuring out whats your next big idea and what you can do to shape the future.

I wanted to explore a subject matter that I was not necessary an expert in and build inspiration for others to pick up seemingly far-reached projects and take them on. I took a chance on building creative confidence over a challenging and unfamiliar hands-on project and built my first knowledge base prototype.

I wanted to create a circumstance where most would give up and where I would receive a lot of negative feedback. I wanted to learn. I wanted to move beyond my comfort zone to grow and evolve.

I am now more proficient in understanding the mechanics of tearing something fairly complex down and building it back up with significant improvements.

I love what I built. I blasted past limits that few people are brave enough to even attempt, as well as, form a stronger can-do mindset.

From re-wiring electrical systems to MIG weld fabricating, new tools were picked up and the process I journeyed through is documented and shareable for others to iterate and improve upon.

I went through 701+ design iterations before reaching the outcome I ended with, and you can view the entire process here.

I had the opportunity to provide on-the-ground disaster relief services in the 2010 Haiti earthquake. That was the beginning.

From 2010 – 2015, I helped serve the needs of over 700,000 people in 8 international disaster relief campaigns by coordinating roadmap research, development, and navigation of 12 high-impact disaster relief projects with a team of 400 multinational donors, 11 strategic alliances, 9 on-site specialists, 24 local beneficiaries and the establishment of $1M in charitable resources.

I established a consistent fundraising portal with the help of the Compassionate Service Society community and later developed social impact training workshops, innovative ways for donors to collaborate, and discussion forums for those interested in the work we did to help those affected by 2011 Japan Tsunami, 2012 Somalia Drought, 2012 Superstorm Sandy, 2013 Typhoon Haiyan, 2014 Ebola Crisis, 2015 Nepal Earthquake.

Early on, I learned how to amplify excitement for program impact and built donor involvement with charity initiatives by storytelling 20 in-the-field public relation reports and allowing follower interaction through social media.

This eventually branched off to a personal project with my twin brother where we decided to utilize our birthday and let our friends and family have the ability to be a part of the impact in fundraising for educational tools and supplies to a high school in rural Kenya.

A gathering space for thinkers, doers, and fun-lovers
Can’t tell creatives how to think but can modify environment
to maximize energy and interactions not isolation and status

Culture:

A culture where risk taking is rewarded

10X thinking: not incremental improvements, but revolutionary improvements
Example: Creating a car that can get 50 MPG vs creating a car that can get 500 MPG
at 50MPG you look at exisiting technology and how we optimize that vs completely new technologies or new ways of thinking
at 500MPG you may re-create what a car is or whether we even needs cars

Work should be challenging, but should also be fun

ideas can come from anywhere