As one of the founders of Code for Oakland, and a member of the committee that planned the event that just happened on July 21st, seeing posts like this one: “Code For Oakland: The Most Diverse Hackathon Ever” | Mitchell Kapor Foundation Weblog http://bit.ly/NmrfOi  and this one: Code For Oakland: The Most Diverse Hackathon Ever - Forbes http://onforb.es/O43dYZmake me happy beyond measure.
I moved to Oakland in 2008, after a short start-up stint in Boulder and many years in Silicon Valley, and immediately started to wonder where the tech community was, how we could build more tech community and why a city like Oakland with good infrastructure and cheap commercial real estate didn’t have more of a start-up scene.
Fast forward 4 years and we’ve got alot more traction on all these issues—but we need to keep hammering on diversity and opportunity for everyone—and not re-create the old school view of what an entrepreneur, programmer, coder, or product developer is (and you probably know exactly what I am talking about.)
So we’re looking for ways to keep Code for Oakland going, and expand and build on it and get more partners and supporters. We’re also sharing our process with people from other cities who have made inquiries—if you’d like to do a civic hackathon a la CFO in your city—let us know.
Some photos from the event here: