When walking around Collegedale with an open ear, one often hears the sound of local students infected with wanderlust, expressing a longing to go beyond Happy Valley and embark on new experiences. However, not many actually get the chance to do so before college; in fact, the convenience of educational opportunities in Collegedale from preschool to graduate studies means that some may never get to venture too far from this town until their career search.

Not so for senior Jill Klinvex. When presented with the opportunity to attend Launch, a program hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for high schoolers seeking to be entrepreneurs, Klinvex took advantage of it. She spent four weeks of her summer participating in intensive training in which the end result is that the students at Launch – fitting to its name – develop and launch their own app.

“Classes would run from 8-6,” Klinvex says, when asked to describe what each day was like. “After that, we would have 5 hours to build our own company in a group setting. For about 3 hours after that, I had meetings with mentors to revise our business plans.”

In order to obtain that time for rigorous training, she had to surrender something else. She says, “I got 3 hours of sleep at night.” Klinvex’s hard work and new knowledge gave way to a brilliant end result. Her business team created this statement for the unveiling of their app:

“We created an app that allows users to easily donate and interact with a wide variety of charities in a trendy and inventive way. Our app, Didomi, allows users to find a charity through the app or donate directly through a QR code, while competing and interacting with friends. Every non-profit’s page will also offer information of their mission, volunteer options, and more. This evolves the act of donating from a transaction to a rewarding game. Didomi bridges the gap between the non-profit organizations and the new generation looking to impact the community.”

Of course, in a city like Cambridge, right next to Boston, Klinvex and the other participants of the Launch program did not let opportunities to enjoy the city slip by; rather, they lived by the motto work hard, play hard.

“We went to a lot of concerts and to Fenway Park for baseball games. Sometimes, we would take our work with us, or we would call our mentors in the time we had available between going from place to place,” says Klinvex.

While at MIT, Klinvex was able to make contact with other people on their way to success. “The people there were incredibly intelligent, with incredibly high ACT scores. One guy was an intern at Google before participating in Launch. My head instructor actually designed for BMW. I also met a group of guys from the University of Cambridge in England, there on an exchange program between the two Cambridges. We got to cook for each other and have fun together. It was great,” says Klinvex.

“[The program] was completely life-changing,” Klinvex affirms. “I would recommend it for anyone. It really does broaden one’s horizons.” Her experience at MIT stands as an example for other young people who desire to go beyond just daydreaming and to have meaningful adventures.