The Pledge

I am a hacker — for good.

That’s the pledge. Said aloud, by every member, at the start of every chapter session — Year 9 and Year 12, first day and last.

It’s six words, and it does a lot of work.

What it means

“I am a hacker” — we keep the word on purpose. A hacker is someone who understands how a system actually works, well enough to bend it. That’s a skill, not a crime. We claim it.

"— for good" — and we point it somewhere. At making the internet safer for the people we care about. At showing parents what the platforms are really doing. At teaching the year below us what took us a year to learn.

Why we say it out loud

Because saying a thing in front of your chapter makes it real. It’s a commitment to each other, not a slogan on a wall:

• For our friends and family — the people most likely to call you when something goes wrong online. You become the person who actually knows what to do.
• For our community — the parents, the younger students, the people who never got taught this. We teach them.
• For the world we want — the internet we grow up to run is the one we decide to build. This is us deciding, early, on purpose.

You don’t have to be the best coder in the room. You have to be willing to use what you know to make things a little safer for everyone around you.

That’s the pledge. Start a chapter, or join one →