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You do not have to build alone.
LOCALLY
A peer network for Leadership & Innovation Lab student founders, organized city by city. Members meet in person a few times a year, stay connected in a city group chat between events, and commit to one thing: showing up for each other.
What LOCALLY Is
A network problem, not an effort problem
Students in the Leadership & Innovation Lab keep meeting the same four walls. Co-founders and collaborators are hard to find outside your own school. A launch arrives with no built-in audience. Student project leaders rarely know each other, even in the same city. Recruiting help and getting the word out end up being solo work. None of that is a question of effort or ambition. It is a question of network, and no amount of working harder solves it from the inside.
LOCALLY closes that gap. Members are grouped by city, meet in person a few times a year, and stay connected between events in a city group chat. Current and alumni Leadership & Innovation Lab students are eligible, and no finished project is required to join. Some of the most useful people in any founder community are the ones who have not started yet.
How a Chapter Works
The Support Pact
The core agreement. Members turn up for each other's events, launches, and projects, and get a guaranteed local audience when it is their turn. Attendance is the currency.
The Chapter Leader
One 10th or 11th grade Leadership & Innovation Lab alumnus per city runs local meetups and keeps the community active. Chapter Leaders are students, not staff, which is deliberate: the network is peer-run by design.
The Local Ally
A Leadership & Innovation Lab staff member based in each city. The role is intentionally light-touch: a friendly local presence students can reach out to, not a supervisor.
The Digital Lounge
A city group chat on WhatsApp or WeChat so members stay connected between events, share what they are building, and recruit help in real time.
Where LOCALLY Is
Seven flagship cities
New York City opened the first chapter in August 2026. Chapters are rolling out next in Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai, each with its own Chapter Leader, Local Ally, and Digital Lounge.
The aim is a network where a student in Vancouver launching a nonprofit can find beta testers in Toronto, and a student in Shanghai can get honest feedback from someone who shipped a similar project last spring.
