Geek NY

As many of you know I have been fairly focused on the question of how to improve the state of the technologist community in New York.

Unfortunately, we do not have the same kind of technologist community as other geographies such as Silicon Valley, and while there are many many technologists in the New York area, in my view there is not sufficient connectedness among us. Many of you are buried inside much larger institutions such as investment banks, and other organizations for which technology is more of a necessary means to an end, than something in and of itself to be interested in or excited about.

So today, I am proposing the creation of a group called the Geek NY.

Geek NY will be modeled on several ideas that I have seen work, and that I think could be effective. The anchor of the concept, which I hope can be similar to the NY Tech Meetup, is a monthly meeting where one or two people will present a technical idea or issue that would be of interest to the technology community at large. An example might be someone coming in to talk about the concept of map/reduce as a new paradigm for programming.

The idea is, at the monthly meetings, to offer presentations that are broadly valuable to the technologist community. Presenters will be a mix of local technologists, and presenters from the corporate or academic world. However, the idea would never be to promote specific products, but more to discuss new ideas, processes and thinking.

Once we begin to improve connectedness, I believe there will be an opportunity to tackle some of the broader issues that keep New York from really being on the map as a great place to create technology and to build technology companies.

Several months ago we formed the New York Tech Boosters mailing list, which I would encourage everyone to join, as it will be the starting point for all discussion about Geek NY. If you are in the Tri-State area, join us.