If you didn’t already know, sharing stories is incredibly important to us here at Summer Search, especially with our students. We ask them to share their stories all the time (in their initial interviews, in regular check-ins, in reflection letters, at events, etc…). As they tell — and retell — their stories, they begin to rewrite what they believe is possible for themselves.

This year, we have been sharing our own stories, the stories of our past 25 years as an organization. One way we have been doing that is through our 25th Anniversary Timeline, which allowed our entire Summer Search community to submit their own stories, photos, videos and reflections, all in one place!

The technology behind our timeline came from the creative mind of San Francisco alumnus Niles Xi’an Lichtenstein and his new digital storytelling platform, The History Project, or THP. The platform lets you collect memories and artifacts scattered over digital, social and the physical world to build meaningful, collaborative and interactive life narratives.

Read more about Niles’s inspiration for starting THP »

Thanks to funding led by The New York Times, Niles and his colleagues officially launched their platform to the public this week!

Niles, who recently moderated a discussion on social entrepreneurship at our 2015 Alumni Summit, believes that capturing our life stories shouldn’t be as fragmented and overwhelming as it is. He and his team made subscriptions free to give everyone the ability to tell their life story in a meaningful way.

Join us in congratulating Niles on his great work, and check out The History Project to start sharing your own stories!

Niles, second from right, with Summer Search staff and fellow alumni celebrating our San Francisco office’s 25th Anniversary