A Tech Events Calendar for the South Sound

Earlier this year, at the 2011 South Sound Technology Conference, a small group of people met in one of the breakout rooms in order to talk about the technology event calendar for the next year. That year being more of a Summer to Summer span as opposed to calendar, but I am already digressing.

My intent was to try and publish a straw man calendar so that a more firmly established annual list of meetings could be drafted, vetted and adopted. Also, edited, enhanced and engaged. Not to mention perused, published and... ok, never mind.

So poster boards were put up and people wrote down events, organizations and ongoing meetings. However, the end result was not really easy to digest and articulate into a calendar. I will give you the raw results first. If it is too much for you just skip down:
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POSTER BOARD ONE:

• EDB Annual Meeting
• A Funding Seminar
• ISSA Training – 1st Tuesday of every month in the Tacoma Room
• Pacific NW Cybersecurity Challenge
• PNW Cybersecurity Symposium
• City Club – a technical based presentation (social networks, online privacy, cybersecurity)
• Technology Career Fair (put on by Workforce?)
• Group meetings – Tacoma Tech Consortium
• - South Sound WTIA
• - Tacoma Angel Network
  

 
POSTER BOARD TWO:

• Ruby on Rails coding meetup
• Startup Weekend
• Suite 133 –
• William M Factory Incubator
• Tacoma Angel Network
  

POSTER BOARD THREE:

• Gaming – Intel
• Kinects – Microsoft
• Have an out of town big tech event meet up. Whether going to a Washington Technology Industry Event like the Industry Achievement Awards or the Technology Alliances Annual Luncheon, coordinate a group to attend the event together.
• Hold a digital government summit in Tacoma
• Washington URISA
  

POSTER BOARD FOUR:

• Shift Awards – Honoring Innovation
• Meet ups – unstructured
• Look at the www.washingtontechnology.org online calendar
• Harmon: Science Café
• Dorkbot
• South Sound Technology Conference 2012

POSTER BOARD FIVE:

• Startup Weekend
• Barcamp X 4
• Alliance of Angels pitch session in Tacoma
• Social Media Outlets
• Tacoma Library meetings (books?)
• FIRST Robotics – Intel Dupont SOTA Winners
• End of the quarter colloquium at the Institute of Technology at the UWT
• PLU

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You see. Plenty of stuff there, but where to start?

It seems to me, there are several organizations listed. Whether they put on events or might put on events that focus on the technology sector, they are part of what aggregating a calendar might look like. Now I don't know if dorkbot is an organization or an ongoing event, but they have not done anything around town for several years. I just know I enjoyed going to the meetings that they had. To the point, each of these organizations holds multiple meetings and events, and could contribute to a calendar.

1. The Tacoma Angel Network
2. Institute of Technology
3. Economic Development Board
4. Dorkbot
5. City Club
6. Grey Hat Group
7. Tacoma Tech Consortium
8. Tacoma Workforce
9. William M Factory
10. Suite 133
11. Washington Technology Industry Association
12. Technology Alliance
13. Washington URISA
14. Alliance of Angels
15. Tacoma Library
16. PLU
17. Not to mention, but I will, Microsoft and Intel.

Several ongoing events were listed as well. These are usually bigger events and have some history to them. These alone would be almost one big tech event per month.

1. The Pacific Northwest Cybersecurity Collegiate Challenge
2. FIRST Robotics Competition
3. PNW Security Symposium
4. The South Sound Entrepreneurs Weekend (A StartUp Weekend like event)
5. The South Sound Technology Conference
6. The Economic Development Boards Annual Meeting (listed, though not tech focused)
7. The SHIFT Awards (put on by SiteCrafting)
8. A Technology Career Fair

Not finally, but about as much as I want to cover right now, are events or meetings that take place several times a year. For example, the end of the quarter colloquium at the Institute of Technology happens four times a year. Each event, though student presentation based, brings about 70 people together during the course of the day. It should probably be more.

1. End of the quarter colloquium at the Institute of Technology
2. Barcamps (suggested we have one quarterly. The last was great.)
3. City Club meetings (on occasion tech subject matter)
4. Science Cafe at the Harmon (is this still going on?)
5. ISSA Training (Tuesday of every month)

That's about it for now. Please feel free to comment on edits, additions or subtractions.