5 Bootstrapping

On a Saturday morning in December 2014, I attended the Education Innovation Summit with a school full of teachers, administrators, and entrepreneurs. We were hosted in the gym and classrooms of E. L. Haynes Public Charter High School in northwest DC, a gleaming, renovated charter school with classrooms filled with student laptops. Upon signing in, every participant had to consent to being photographed and filmed for publicity materials the organizers, the CityBridge Foundation and the NewSchools Venture Fund
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(both education reform philanthropies), would produce after the event and during it on social media. I had been clued into the event by a Du Bois teacher who had been previously awarded a CityBridge fellowship. Everyone knew each other from similar events; both teachers and tech entrepreneurs were used to giving their weekends over to work.