Lynk is a mobile application developed for GovHack 2022 that helps students adapt to life after school by connecting them with events in their local community to learn essential life skills like investing, doing laundry, cooking, and other skills that often aren't taught in school. This is particularly important in rural areas where such resources may be limited.

Students graduating from school often lack essential life skills that aren't traditionally taught in the classroom. This gap is particularly pronounced in rural and regional areas where access to practical life skills education, mentorship, and career opportunities is limited. Young adults face:

• Limited access to practical life skills workshops and events
• Difficulty connecting with mentors and alumni from their schools
• Fragmented information about local job opportunities and career resources
• No centralized platform to discover government-sponsored programs and community events

The GovHack challenge asked teams to create innovative solutions that would help students transition successfully from school to independent life, particularly in underserved communities.

Lynk combines the best features of popular platforms into one comprehensive mobile app designed specifically for students transitioning to independent life. Drawing inspiration from Meetup for discovering local events, LinkedIn for connecting with mentors and alumni, and traditional job boards for finding opportunities, Lynk creates a unified platform tailored to students' needs.

The app prioritizes government-sponsored programs and uses location-based services to show relevant opportunities nearby. By centralizing life skills events, mentorship connections, and local job opportunities in one accessible platform, Lynk empowers students to build the skills and networks they need for success after school.

• Local Event Discovery: Find life skills workshops and community events in your area, with priority given to government-sponsored programs. Learn practical skills like investing, cooking, doing laundry, and other essential life competencies that aren't typically taught in school.
• Alumni & Mentor Network: Connect and chat with school alumni to find mentors who can provide guidance, share experiences, and help navigate life after school. Build meaningful relationships with people who understand your journey.
• Job Board & Opportunities: Browse jobs and local opportunities tailored to your interests and industry. Discover career paths, internships, and entry-level positions in your area to kickstart your professional journey.

Building Lynk during GovHack 2022 was an intensive 72-hour sprint. Our team of developers, designers, and a community education specialist worked together to create a functional prototype that addressed the challenge brief.

Key challenges included:

• Integrating multiple government datasets into a coherent experience
• Designing for accessibility and diverse user needs
• Building a mobile app from scratch in under 72 hours
• Creating a compelling pitch that demonstrated real community impact

Despite the time pressure, we delivered a polished prototype with core features working end-to-end, along with mockups showing the full vision for the platform.

Lynk won 1st place at GovHack 2022, recognized for its innovative approach to community education access and its potential for real-world impact. The judges praised the app's user-centric design, technical execution, and clear demonstration of how it would address the challenge brief.

Following the hackathon, we were invited to present the concept to government stakeholders interested in piloting similar solutions for community education programs. While Lynk itself remains a hackathon project, the ideas and learnings from its development have influenced how we think about building accessible, community-focused applications.