Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
And every year, one of the first events out of the gates is InnoTech, the premier technology event for business folks in the Portland area.
It’s starting Portland. Our usual packed summer of tech events and camps that bring even more awesome people into town to share their ideas and concepts with the awesome people—like you—who call Portland home.
And every year, one of the first events out of the gates is InnoTech, the premier technology event for business folks in the Portland area. Thinking about going? Well you better get on that. It starts tomorrow, May 6. Read More
[Full disclosure: I am on the volunteer committee helping to organize Open Source Bridge.]
As many of you know, OSCON will be held in San Jose, this year. And RailsConf will be in Las Vegas. That left Portland—arguably the de facto hub of all things open source-y—strangely devoid of a major open source conference until Linux Plumbers Conference in September.
And that just didn’t seem right. So Audrey Eschright and Selena Deckelmann decided to do something about it. And they got a bunch of other volunteers together who wanted to help. That became Open Source Bridge.
You see, if there’s one thing I love about Portland, it’s our entrepreneurial spirit. We weren’t just going to sit around and cry in our microbrewed beers about it. We Portlanders are going to figure out how to do something else. We’ll show them.
And true to form, here’s Open Source Bridge, a new grassroots-organized open-source-developer-oriented conference that’s slated to be held in Portland, next summer.
Fast forward to today and that dream has officially become a reality. Registration is now open for Open Source Bridge.
Costs? You can attend the three-day conference—June 17-19—for $175. But you have to act quickly. That early bird rate expires on April 1. And if you’re coming from out of town—heck if you’re coming from Beaverton—you can get a room at the Hilton for $139/night.
Why would you stay at the Hilton? Four words my friend. Well, actually one number and three words: 24-hour hacker lounge.
Personally, it’s been an incredible experience, thus far, working with the amazing people volunteering to pull this off. Open Source Bridge is a different kind of conference. And it’s yet another incredible event that’s going to put Portland on the map.
Different how? It’s about open source culture for developers. It’s about being open source citizens:
We’re planning a conference that will connect developers across projects, across languages, across backgrounds to learn from each other. We want people to experience something beyond “how to use tool X” or “why databases keel over when you do Y” (even though those topics are important, making up our tools and trade, and will be a central part of the conference content). We’d like to share what open source means to us, what it offers, where we struggle, and why we do this day in and day out, even when we’re not paid for it.
Hopefully, you’ll put up with me continuing to blather on about it. Because I think it’s yet another example of the Portland community doing things in a very Portland-y way and—as usual—wildly succeeding.
I’m hoping to see you there.
[HTML1]