This piece was composed by Tara Chklovski, founder and CEO of Iridescent, to recognize the achievements of all Technovation program participants
Do you feel the same?
Tara Chklovski
I failed at something that I had worked all my life to try to accomplish.
Has that ever happened to you?
It shakes your confidence. You don’t know what is real anymore.
You don’t have a foundation.
Your image of yourself is shattered.
I went under a shell. It was warm.
But I got restless.
I wanted to do something big, something larger than myself
Something that would help improve the lives of others.
I decided to start something new — a nonprofit
That would inspire children all over the world
To change their own worlds for the better
Because children often know best
But starting is so hard.
I had never started anything before in my life.
I didn’t know how to.
Would I be successful?
What is success anyway?
Does success even matter?
Who defines success and labels it as such?
Have you ever wondered that?
I was scared to start.
But then my husband dared me to start.
And I did.
That was ten years ago.
Iridescent is a global education nonprofit now
Helping thousands of young people
Change their worlds around them
By innovating and being brave.
I needed a little push, even if it was just a trivial dare.
Did Technovation give you that little push?
To program a mobile app?
To launch a startup?
If someone asked you last year, “Are you a technology entrepreneur?”
What would you have said then?
What would you say today?