Apr 20, 2023 | 2 min read

Bringing Civic Engagement and Community Building Online with Rich Alapack

By: Patrick Emmons

Bringing Civic Engagement and Community Building Online with Rich Alapack

Participating in school activities and community building has been challenging for remote and hybrid students, let alone the near impossibility of "running into a friend." Rich Alapack, founder of we all live here, witnessed this experience early in the pandemic and envisioned a program in which this was all possible: SchoolTopia.

In this episode, Rich shares the mission of we all live here and their commitment to public art projects that promote inclusivity and empower students to challenge hatred in their communities. Rich discusses his experience developing an off-campus housing website in college and his current journey of bringing SchoolTopia to beta partners. He provides insight into virtual schooling and the customization available to provide an enriched experience with a focus on the social aspect of attendance, virtual safety, and integrating outside partners, like we all live here, into the software for a complete school experience.

  • (01:18) – we all live here
  • (03:05) – Simplicity vs. complexity
  • (09:02) – Taking action
  • (11:14) – SchoolTopia
  • (19:14) – FindAPlaceToLive.com
  • (23:30) – Product customization
  • (26:24) – Safety in virtual spaces

About Our Guest

Rich Alapack is the founder of we all live here, an organization that uses art, community, and technology to develop experiences, programs, and activities that remind us all to get along and help each other. He is a creative team builder, collaborative leader, consistent closer, frequent speaker (including TEDx), innovative thought leader, and public advocate of diversity and inclusion. His career has orbited sales and brand strategy, and he earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Winona State University.

Subscribe to Your Favorite Podcast

If you’d like to receive new episodes as they’re published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

About Patrick Emmons

If you can’t appreciate a good sports analogy, movie quote, or military reference, you may not want to work with him, but if you value honesty, integrity, and commitment to improvement, Patrick can certainly help take your business or your career to the next level. “Good enough,” is simply not in his vernacular. Pat’s passion is for relentlessly pushing himself and others to achieve full potential. Patrick Emmons is a graduate of St. Norbert College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Mathematics. Patrick co-founded Adage Technologies in 2001 and in 2015, founded DragonSpears as a spin-off dedicated to developing custom applications that improve speed, compliance and scalability of clients’ internal and customer-facing workflow processes. When he is not learning about new technology, running a better business, or becoming a stronger leader, he can be found coaching his kids’ (FIVE of them) baseball and lacrosse teams and praising his ever-so-patient wife for all her support.

Recent Episodes

We interview leaders from early-stage start-ups to billion-dollar enterprises who distill their lessons from their victories and their failures. Learn how these high-performing leaders organize their teams, establish a growth-minded culture, and leverage new technologies such as DevOps and Cloud.