Teer Inc is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. I’m helping direct the Generation Match program, which aims to combat senior citizen isolation due to the pandemic. We've partnered with a nursing home and high school to match isolated senior citizens with young volunteer penpals.
BlockFund is a decentralized autonomous organization that leverages blockchain to pool community funds and allow for transparent voting and engagement. I did most of the frontend development for BlockFund among a team of three others at Stanford University’s TreeHacks 2021. Out of 2,000 hackers, our team of 4 won two awards.
Grosseries is a virtual reality game that shows everyday shoppers how their buying choices can drastically impact the world around them. I helped develop Grosseries among a team of three others at UC San Diego’s SD Hacks 2021. In under 36 hours, with no prior VR/Unity experience, I had to learn how to use Unity to create the world and write scripts in C# to deteriorate the environment on command. Out of 500 hackers, our team of 4 won four awards.
I started programming when I was about 7 years old in HTML and CSS. You can find one of the first websites I have ever made by clicking here. Over the years, I’ve acquired experience in a wide variety of languages, including C++, Python, PHP, Lua, and Visual Basic. I’m most comfortable with all things JavaScript/TypeScript (and Sass/LESS for stylesheets.) My preferred tech stack is MongoDB, Express, React, and Node, but I’m always willing to switch things up (e.g. Postgres instead of Mongo.)
I could honestly talk about this for hours on end. I’m a big fan of Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism) as well as Eastern religion (Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism, Sikhism, etc.) I’m an agnostic theist/Creationist. Most of my values are inspired by the philosophies and religions I have named above. If we ever strike up a conversation, I really encourage you to share a bit about your spiritual journey!
I believe that humans are intended to cooperate with one another and that it is within my purpose to do the most I can for others. I’m part of an Effective Altruism Fellowship at Stanford University, where I’m diving deep into the topic of how to do the most good most efficiently.
I really want to build and scale a profitable business idea. I have several ideas I try to jot down, but they never typically come to fruition because I get concerned about the opportunity cost of spending my time on an idea that is not guaranteed to succeed. Once I’m financially sound, this is something I plan on taking very seriously.
As a Latino, diversity and inclusion are things that I deeply value. I cherish a broader range of experiences and stories in any environment, and I believe we need to continue taking strides to ensure that this is a social norm.
I love playing the piano (though I’m not that good.) I have a really strong sense of nostalgia that encourages me to play. Lots of songs from my childhood bring out such emotion in me, and I love to translate that to the keys of the piano.
I’d love to build you a website! Let’s talk about it: hey@marcusfran.co