At its core, Agile is an experience of fast, iterative learning with Higher Purpose.
The work "Agile" has limited meaning without the experience.
>ag·ile /ˈajəl/ *adjective* able to move quickly and easily.
By breaking complex problems into small pieces and then, Working with Others, passionately focusing on each piece, solutions can be created much faster than traditional process models that utilize Structured Planning.
When a group of software developers came together in 2001 to find a common ground and shared language that embraced their new methods of software development, they published a manifesto, calling it the Manifesto for Agile Software Development 
.
With that manifesto, agile now had a new meaning - one that was intended to capture not just the _form_ but, far more importantly, the _experience_ of creating software in a radical new way.
An experience of self-managing teams working together to create with clear and meaningful purpose. Creating in a way that utilized rapid Learning Cycles.
It is very hard, if not impossible, to understand this Agile experience without personally experiencing it. But once you have had this experience of The Flow and Accelerated Learning, you will never be the same. The experience creates fast-paced Learning Cycles that ignites our Curiousity in a way that unleashes previously unrecognized potential.
This new development experience enabled better software to be written exponentially faster that the traditional methods that depended on rigid planning.
This experience tapped something deeper - a vitalizing sense of joy of learning and discovery - that was exhilarating and incorporated the potential of the Whole Mind.
Make-a-thons are events that we use to introduce the Agile experience - the Essence of Agile to communities.