Back in January 2014, I wrote about Commitment. As a result, Kari Bancroft and I started Valley Forge Tech Meetup. Having lived and worked in the King of Prussia area for the past ten years, I knew there were loads of talented people with no surrounding support community. I had always wanted to get involved with the tech/start-up scene but attending Meetups in Center City can be challenging.
Just look at the average traffic on I-76 at 6PM!
Valley Forge Tech was formed in early 2014 with the intention of running bi-monthly Meetups ranging from community meet and greets to demo days. Turns out we severely underestimated the demand for a tech meetup in the Philadelphia suburbs. We went from scheduling Meetups every two months to scheduling two-four every month. The numbers of ‘techies has grown from an initial two (Kari and myself) to 425 - an average of 7 new members a week! Out of those, we have about 100 active members with an average Meetup size of about 25-30 people.
"Let's Get Angular" Tech Talk by Joel Confino at EMC in Conshohocken, PA
Spending the past year building Valley Forge Tech with Kari has been a blast. I’ve met amazing people, had some great discussions, learned a heck of a lot and, of course, ate copious amounts of pizza. Unfortunately, it’s time for me to call it quits. In July I was offered a job opportunity that I could not pass up. I have since moved half way around the world making it difficult to assist Kari in managing VFT and scheduling events. As of today I will be stepping down as co-founder of Valley Forge Tech Meetup. But fear not - Kari isn’t going anywhere and will keep things rolling into 2015 and beyond. Please keep in touch - a widget with all my contact info is on the top right of this page.
On a last departing note, I wanted to give a very big thank you to everyone who helped us get things off the ground and hosted an event. None of this would have been possible without you.
- Joe Callahan, Ciright
- Guy Fardone, EvolveIP
- David Iovino, EMC
- Dan McGrann, H.A. Storage
- Bob Moul, Artisan Mobile
- Tracey Welzson-Rossman, Chariot Solutions
…and to all 425+ Techies, THANK YOU!
Hope to see you around,
Mat