Noonie Nominee Lane Wagner Wants to Gamify Education

In these unprecedented times, people build unprecedented products, and contribute to the internet in unprecedented ways. One such impressive Hacker Noon contributor is Lane Wagner from the United States.

Scroll on through for Lane's take on what’s trending in tech and security today.

1. Which 2020 Noonie have you been nominated for?

Hacker Noon Contributor of the Year - Security

2. Tell us a bit about yourself.

I started the Qvault blog in the fall of 2018 primarily to record useful information for myself while I studied computer science and cryptography. Now I want to share my findings and obnoxious opinions with other developers.

I continue to grow and hope to help others learn more about the science of programming and cryptography. I’m currently focusing on the Qvault app (https://classroom.qvault.io) because I’m interested in the idea of gamifying education.

3. Tell us about the things you make / write / manage / build.

Most of my free time is spent on the Qvault app. I write interactive courses that can be completed in the browser. It's been a really fun project with an interesting tech stack. We use plain markdown files for the instructions, and compile backend code to Web Assembly that runs right in the student's browser!

4. What are you most excited about right now?

The idea of disrupting higher education. Colleges and universities are out of date and expensive, and often provide little to no return-on-investment for students.

5. What are you worried about right now?

I'm worried about student load debt in America, and the lack of higher education opportunities abroad. These are problems that can be solved through modern technology, but it will require a lot of work, work that I plan to do.

6. What's the most useful advice you've ever given somebody?

If I've ever given good coding advice its probably been, "Optimize for simplicity first".

7. How has the pandemic changed your life and/or career?

Working from home is lonely... I think its been great for many people that live with friends and family but it's been hard for me. I can't complain too much though, at least I've been fortunate to have a job during the craziness.

8. If we gave you $10 million to invest in one thing right now, where would you put it?

I would hire a full development team and go full throttle on Qvault development. Consider higher education disrupted.

9. What's an opinion you have that most people don't agree with?

I think all engineering managers should write code.

10. Which apps can't you live without?

VS Code, Postgres, Discord, and DotA 2

11. What are you currently learning?

Vue.js, I'm a Go developer by trade, so I have a lot to learn about front end work.

For much the same reasons Hacker Noon decided not to put good ideas behind pop-ups or paywalls — nor abuse your personal data to target you with creepy ads — we also decided that you don’t have to be an influencer or have 50k followers on Twitter to earn the recognition that comes with a 2020 Noonie Nomination. 

Make somebody’s day and nominate them to be recognized in the Internet’s most independent and community-driven awards: NOONIES.TECH.