Tonight, March 13, 2012, at Capdeville from 5:30pm to 7pm, Michael Karnjanaprakorn (CEO/Co-Founder) and Abigail Besdin (BD/Partnerships) will be in town for New Orleans Entrepreneurship Week (If you haven't gotten the full scoop on NOEW, visit their schedule site and stare in amazement.) You can enroll in the "class" online here and enjoy some drinks with them after this afternoon's keynote speech.

Now, you might be asking yourself, what exactly is Skillshare and why should I care? Besides being highlighted by The New York Times, Forbes, TechCrunch, Mashable, and Wired, this New York startup gone national is fulfilling a niche that many have sought for a while: where can one market their skills and share with others like a teacher, but without the restrictions of universities and paperwork? Skillshare is like MeetUp, but tailored more towards the actual methods of teaching and learning rather than gathering for a variety of topics to discuss.

If you're looking to find out more information about Skillshare and what it can offer you, tonight is a perfect opportunity!

Dennis Warren Ross revealed during a recent Net2NO meeting that the city will release new datasets for people to work with at the event.  These datasets will allow developers, planners, and problem solvers to use city data for whatever project they will be working on.

Code For America Hackathon in New Orleans 2012

What Will The Hackathon Consist Of?

DAY ONE

Friday, Feb 24th: Kickoff Happy Hour at Capdeville

• 5pm: Registration, meet and greet
• 5:30pm: Releasing several new data sets from City Hall
• 6pm: Pitch potential project ideas
• 6:30pm: Form teams and mingle!

DAY TWO:

Saturday, Feb 25th: Hackathon at Launchpad

• 9am: Light breakfast (provided)
• 9:30am: Get to work!
• 1:30pm: Working lunch (pizza provided)
• 5:30pm: Time's up! Showcase your apps to our judges
• 6pm: Judging and prizes
• 6:30: Closing remarks
• 7pm: Afterparty at Capdeville

How Do I Register?

To register, check out http://codenola.eventbrite.com and see other that are going as well!

“Our tactical plan hasn’t changed since last year and we are still committed to four goals” said Allen Square, Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the City of New Orleans.  The tactical plan that Mr. Square is referring to includes stabilizing the city’s IT environment, building a strong foundation of IT staff, increasing value-added services, and creating a culture innovation.  Much of 2011 was spent stabilizing the city’s IT environment.  City IT workers had their hands full with everything from virtual servers that died to losing twenty percent of the city's e-mail system.  This meant that mission critical systems such as e-mail, payroll, and another applications had to be working efficiently before other projects could take place.

While the city has made considerable progress in their stabilization efforts, they still have a way to go.  Since 2010, the number of items on the city’s IT stabilization checklist has increased.

New Orleans City IT Stabilization Checklist - Credit: City of NOLA

Critical IT Projects for 2012

The city's ITI department has seven critical projects that it plans to undertake in 2012 which include:

• 311 Service:  The relaunch of the city's 311 service with a new website and improved call center.
• Unified Communications Upgrade: Upgrading all telecommunications infrastructure.
• PC Refresh:  The goal is to upgrade 500 to 700 computers in 2012.  336 computers have already been refreshed in 2011.
• Payroll:  Improving payroll services by outsourcing to a 3rd party vendor.
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System:  A new financial and asset management system.
• E-mail:  Will outsource e-mail to Microsoft cloud.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity: Putting infrastructure in place to continue city operations during outages/disasters.

City of New Orleans 2012 Critical ITI Projects - Credit: City of NOLA

A More Toward Open Gov

Denice Warren Ross, Director of Applications for the City of New Orleans also talked about departments effort to make data more available to citizens.  She describes it as a slow and steady process toward "open gov" that will allow information that once resided only in city hall to be made publicly available.   One way that this is happening is though critical partnerships with organizations such as IBM and Code for America.  The IBM Smarter Cities project, which will be a three to eight year project, is helping the city build a data warehousing strategy to improve decision making for city staff and citizens.  A recent Code for America grant sent fellows to work with city IT for the next year on an application to address common problems such as blight.  There are also a couple of software as a service (SAAS) apps already provided by the city, which include Data.NOLA.Gov and an enterprise city calendar.

City Job Opportunities

Lastly, Lamar Gardere, Quality Control/Quality Assurance Manager for the ITI department talked about the importance of building a strong foundation of IT workers within city hall and not having to heavily depend on contractors.  In May 2010, a sizable portion of IT work for the city was done by outside vendors.  This trend has been slowly eroding away with more full-time employees taking over in these areas.  But the city is still looking for qualified IT workers in several fields to continue to build their team.

WEB (Contact: Eric Ogburn - epogburn@nola.gov)

• Content Editor for Nola.gov
• Web Application Developer to make easy-to-use tools to improve interactions between public & City Hall

DATA ANALYTICS (Denice Ross - dwross@nola.gov)

OPERATIONS (Eric Bergquist - ebergquist@nola.gov)

QUALITY ASSURANCE & CONTROL  (Lamar Gardere - lmgardere@nola.gov)

ENGINEERING (Ed Kerkow - edkerkow@nola.gov)

• 311 Operators, Supervisor, Trainer & Business Analysts supporting the Mar 26 launch
• Project Managers to lead traditional IT-centric projects

For more info on all city ITI jobs can by found on here.

The Technology Challenge is an annual state-wide competition among high school students in Louisiana. Every high school in Louisiana can enter a single team composed of up to 15 students under the guidance of a designated Team Coach. On the morning of the competition, during regular school hours, each school team meets at a reserved computer lab at their respective high schools. Each team needs an Internet-accessible computer to complete the challenging tasks. This event is a virtual field trip, without the costs of travel.

This competition recognizes and acknowledges students interested in demonstrating their creative use of technology and teamwork skills. As Louisiana prepares for a brighter future, our schools need to encourage students to apply skills that will help them to productively contribute in a modern and progressive society through teamwork. The main purpose of this competition is to demonstrate how our students can use technology creatively, in a team, for productive life-long learning

Mission Of The Technology Challenge

The LA High School Online Tech Challenge was started by The University of Louisiana of Monroe with the mission to promote enthusiastic support for more active involvement of students in active learning opportunities.  The challenge also helps:

• instill a passion for learning through teamwork
• actively recognize and share excellent student work
• celebrating outstanding student achievement
• promoting community, school, and business partnerships that support learning with technology.
• promoting meaningful achievement
• attracting more students, particularly females and minorities, to professional and technical careers dealing with technology.

Registration Deadline

The registration deadline is Friday, February 10, 2012. Any high school in Louisiana is eligible for free registration in this online state-wide competition. This annual online technology competition encourages high school students to prepare for Louisiana's future through a competition of technology-based teamwork activities.  Every high school in Louisiana is welcome to participate in this educational event by registering a student team. Since 2006, well over 3,000 high school students have participated in this annual online event held during regular school hours in a high school's computer lab.

Now that the “start your engine” cliché is behind us, let’s talk about Hack Dat; a code competition taking place in New Orleans on December 9th through December 11th.  Code competitions have become popular because they allow people to come together and create something with the help of others. Usually done in teams, the groups that is formed codes an application within a designated time frame for fame, money, or prizes (namely $1000 for first place and $750 for second place)

Hack Dat, will be a 48 hour code competition in which programmers, developers, designers and anyone else who is interested that can form teams to build a web application in order to win prizes.

Rules

All the rules can be found at http://hackdat.org/rules.html but the important ones to remembers are:

• Teams can be solo or up to 4 people
• No digital assets can be created beforehand (this includes ready to slice graphics, code snippets, etc)
• The application can make use of any non-paid and publicity available 3rd party web service
• Teams must be present on the night of Friday and the night of Sunday of the competition
• Judges will look at your work in the areas of completeness, usability, originality, and execution

More Info

If you already have a team in mind or if you would like to do it solo, you can register before the event.  Hack Dat will take place from December 9th at 6:00pm and last until December 11th at 6:00pm. The judging event will take place starting at 6:30 on the 11th at LaunchPad as well.

The actual event will be held wherever you are doing your work; in other words, there is no central location that you are required to be at for the duration of the contest. All we care about it that you show up for the judging event at LaunchPad at 6:30 on the 11th with an app in hand!

If you are a developer or programmer, chances are you've at least heard about Drupal. (If you haven't, its the third largest content management system available.) Well, New Orleans, we have the honor and privilege of hosting this year's Drupal summit, Drupal on the Bayou.

"It's a Drupal Summit, At a Casino, In New Orleans"

On December 8 and 9, developers from around the country will gather at Harrah's in the Central Business District, and Drupal is not playing down New Orleans' assets a single bit. For our of town visitors staying at Harrah's Hotel or surrounding accommodations, you are on the very edge of the French Quarter and the Mississippi River. There is no need to describe the French Quarter; to anyone, it is a place of legend. However, if you are looking for local shows and eats and avoiding touristy traps, the Historic Warehouse District boasts great bars and appetizing offerings at some of the best restaurants in the city. Github is even holding an event opening night at the Howlin' Wolf.

Visitors will also enjoy direct access to the streetcar and metro transit that can bring you to Frenchmen Street, Magazine Street, and more. The only sad thing I have to tell visitors is that the Apple Store is not located in New Orleans; this news surprises many, so come prepared or ready to take a cab to Metairie if you have Apple products in your arsenal.

The Details

Drupal and local developer communities have organized two days jam packed with tons to encourage participation. Keynote speaker, Angie "Webchick" Byron, kicks off the event on the morning of December 8. Byron is described as "a rock star in the Drupal World… Director of Community Development at Acquia, core co-maintainer for Drupal 7, recipient of the Google-O'Reilly Open 2008 Source Award for Best Contributor, co-author of the O'Reilly book Using Drupal, and an open source evangelist who lives and breathes Drupal." Not only does she boast amazing credentials in the world of development, but she also defies the stereotypical male developer role. It is rumored that she is an extremely helpful lioness.

Registrants can choose between different categories of sessions, or mix and match, based on what interests them: build, design, and business. The summit also offers a range of difficulty levels in sessions, from the newly trained to the wizened veteran. Offerings include Training Your Drupal Clients with Steve Burge, A Real Time Demonstration of Scaling Drupal 7 with Nathan Goulding, and many more sessions to fill your craving for Drupal studies.

Registration for both days is a measly $125.00, but summit participants are out for their own lunch. Student and funds are low? Register for free! Looking to learn Drupal or feeling like you need a refresher? LevelTen Interactive is offering preliminary training days before the event for a fee. On Monday, December 5, LevelTen will instruct novices in Drupal in a Day. Tuesday and Wednesday, December 6 and 7, delves deeper into Drupal 7 with a complete course on site building and best practices in developing with Drupal.

This year's Drupal on the Bayou promises to be an enlightening and promising summit for developers, local and from afar. For those of you who have not heard of Drupal or have had limited experience, you should consider taking this opportunity and attending Drupal on the Bayou to introduce yourself to new horizons. With Drupal's market share rising and boasting over 13,000 developers, Drupal offers a wide frontier of opportunities open for developers of any level to explore.

Isaacson is the CEO of the Aspen Institute and has been chairman of CNN and the managing editor of Time magazine. He has previously written bestselling biographies of Benjamin Franklin , Albert Einstein, and Henry Kissinger. This book, titled Steve Jobs, is based on more than forty interviews with Jobs over a two year period, along with interviews from more than a hundred individuals who knew Jobs, including family members, friends, colleagues and competitors.

The event is free and open to the public, but seating will be limited.  The event will take place at 5342 St. Charles Avenue. For more information, contact Debbie Pesses at 504.887.5158 or debbie@nojcc.org.

Startup Weekend is a featured event of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW). The Baton Rouge Startup Weekend is highlighted on the Kauffman Foundation’s website for GEW, unleashingideas.org.  Startup Weekend is an official event of Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week (BREW), which will be held November 11-18. A full schedule of events can be found on the website, www.brewingupideas.com.

Wendy Overton, one of the organizers for the event, tells us that New Orleans tech startups can also benefit.  "Startup Weekend is a great place to explore a cool project you've been kicking around, and work alongside talented, like-minded people like yourself. When NOLA tech startups leave the weekend, they'll have new friends and connections, which can lead to new opportunities." says Overton.

The winner of the November Startup Weekend will compete in the Global Startup Battle, which will pit all worldwide Startup Weekend winners from this month’s Global Entrepreneurship Week events against each other in a virtual global battle with online voting.

Last year, Startup Weekend Baton Rouge saw two startups, 300seats.com and Hagglebot, that cook center stage.  300seats.com, a  cultural hub and event series that mixes theater, art, and creative spaces was established while Hagglebot; a system that allows retailers and customers to negotiate on prices was also created.  Hagglebot was the winning concept from last year and went on to pitch in the Bay Area Startup Weekend in San Francisco where it took the top prize.

Startup Weekend falls within Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week (BREW) which is a week-long series of events cultivating and celebrating entrepreneurship throughout Louisiana and the Capital Region in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week.  The week is being coordinated by the Regional Innovation Organization (RIO), along with Entrepreneurs’ Organization, Louisiana Business & Technology Center, LSU Stephen Entrepreneurship Institute, LSU Continuing Education, Louisiana Technology Park, CMO Accelerator, Startup Weekend, Business Report, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC), Entrepreneur Rising, EHQ, The Force Agency, 300seats and SeNSE.  Baton Rouge Business Report, LSU Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute, Entrepreneurs Organization, and CMO Accelerator are premier sponsors.

Registration and more information for Startup Weekend can be found at batonrouge.startupweekend.org.   You can use code BREW2011 for 20% off any ticket type.

The conference does a good job with mixing up national speakers with locals in the community. Last year, names like Baratunde Thurston from The Onion and Ben Huh from I Can Has Cheezburger spoke alongside locals from New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette.

Event: TribeCon 2011

Date: October 27^th, 2011

Website: http://www.tribecon.com

Speaker/Topic Sign Up: http://bit.ly/rc0dyB

BarCamp NOLA 4

For three years, nerds, geeks, technologists and those with a hunger for anything technology-related have congregated at BarCamp NOLA. The annual event, which has been dubbed an “unconference,” began its journey in Palo Alto, Calif. in 2005. The conference began as a flexible one, opening its doors to anyone willing to participate. If attendees chose to present on specific topics, they were welcome to do so. BarCamp not only focuses on various topics such as web application and open source technology, but also centers itself around public transit, healthcare and political organization. Since its founding, BarCamp has spread to several cities across the United States.

Ruby on Rails Preso from BarCamp NOLA

Four years ago, New Orleans joined the ranks as a BarCamp city, hosting BarCamp NOLA for the first time in 2007. Matthew Tritico and Nicky Henriquez Mast, organizers of BarCamp NOLA, are taking the reins again this year to bring the conference back to the New Orleans technology community.

“Although BarCamp NOLA has seen a variety of topics, this year the focus seems to be coming back to its tech roots,” Tritico said.

Looking at the BarCamp NOLA sign up, a long portion of the workshop focuses solely on technology. Some of the lineup includes: Tim Garrett, who is set to present on using Yahoo! pipes to achieve full-flavored RSS deliciousness; Logan Leger, who will present on “Ruby, iOS, and Android, platforms” and yours truly, who will speak about how the world's biggest software vendors are racing towards a centralized OS.

Event Details

Did I mention that BarCamp NOLA 4 is free? As of now, 73 people have signed up and 27 tickets remain unclaimed. The two-day event will take place on July 16-17 at 9:30 am. 643 Magazine St., Suite 102 in New Orleans.

How It All Works

For a newcomer, BarCamp NOLA can be like a kid on their first day of school. What’s going on? What class do I go to? Who’s this person talking? For those who feel this way, BarCamp NOLA will follow the schedule below:

Workshop Signup Board

Day 1: Think of Day 1 as a day for learning, sharing, and collaboration. Everyone will gather in the morning for a short introduction, some house rules, and the occasional Mac/PC reference. Once this takes place, everyone races to a whiteboard to write down what they’d like to present on and choose their time slots. After, the day is filled with presentations, workshops, or demos.

Day 2: The second day is always called “Hack Day”. The goal is to get attendees from Day 1 together to build something for the greater good of the community. Last year, the group collaborated on a project for “Closing the Gap,” an online community for the educators working to close the achievement gap in NOLA public schools. The great thing about “Hack Day” is that anyone can get involved. You don’t have to be a designer, programmer, or even a techie. Just come with an open mind and be willing to help.