I attended my first NY Tech Meetup event yesterday, and really enjoyed it. At Fusion we work with tech companies ffrom around the country and world, and it was great to take a step closer to the tech culture in our own NYC back yard.
The event, which was held in a lecture hall at NYU, was packed with 700 plus people. NYU computer science professor Evan Korth, the host for the evening, started out with some general comments about the NY tech community, and discussed its growth, and the importance of an ecosystem that extends to surrounding areas and universities.
He said, in essence, that NY should not necessarily look to Silicon Valley as our model (as many tech corridors do), but should instead carve out our own formula for success and growrth.
There were quite a few very cool demos (for a summary, I reiterate some of my tweets below). The highlight was a demo that involved the audience. Huge inflated beachball-like spheres hwere thrown in and tossed around. An infrared camera captured the motion and superimposed the spheres on a large screen (you can see a lousy picture from my lame BlackBerry camera above). We played a game pitting one side of the hall against the other as people batted the balls back and forth.
In another sequence, the spheres cut swaths from the screen as they moved across it, revealing still shots underneath – as sections of the screen were revealed, people yelled out the names of the tech icons that became clear bit by bit – Jobs and Woz, Richard Stallman, Gates and Ballmer, Eniac, etc.
I truly felt immersed in hacker culture, it was a blast to be in this room that was alive with excitement about tech, both past and present (someone yelled out “Facebook” making it clear how the paradigm in tech has shifted).
Another highlight was meeting author Doug Rushkoff, who was there to talk about his new book, Program or be Programmed. It sounds like a great read and I will have to pick it up. Rushkoff has written many great books, including once called Media Virus, which should be required reading for anyone in PR, I read and really enjoyed it. He said that he would be happy to answer a few interview email questions for this blog, so please stay tuned.
My tweets from last night:
- General Sentiment, a Stony Brook LI co., is showing their app, powerful platform for analyzing buzz and public perception
- Build images via text instructions Http//bit.ly/wordseye
- Doug Rushkoff talking about his new book Program or be Programmed
- Hackathon winner: text roulette “combatting boredom with addiction” 917-725-4001 follow @Text_Roulette
- Rooster.AM, hackathon winner, cool morning wakeup/schedule/news/organizer
- Wayfor looks pretty cool – let’s you find political issues, analyze, organize, mobilize via Web
- At NY Tech Meetup, 566 Laguardia, NYU Co Sci prof Evan Korth hosting
