Dan Pickett Holds Lecture at Harvard Business School

At Launch Academy, we teach some of the brightest, most gifted people in the world how to become software developers. The thrill lies in sharing our expertise and watching our students grow. Whenever we get the chance to share our wisdom and passion with other extraordinary individuals, we jump at the chance.

On April 15, 2015, Launch Academy co-founder Dan Pickett was invited to speak to graduate students at Harvard Business School. He devoted time to exploring what it means to be a software developer, introducing students to the basics of programming in Ruby. The majority of the students in attendance want to pursue opportunities at tech companies, or form their own start-ups.

The students worked through a number of exercises, using the same tools that software developers use on a daily basis, such as online documentation and coding forums. They engaged in pair-programming sessions to write a program that determines if a user-submitted name is a palindrome.

Dan also used the opportunity to talk about working in the start-up realm. He offered insight as to what to look for when forming a company’s technical team, and offered resources and networking tips for finding technical co-founders.

Thanks a lot to Harvard Business School for hosting us! It was a blast! Special shout out to HBS grad student Hon Lung Chu for inviting us!