A fresh way to foster tech innovation

PBN photo/Stephanie EwensFrom left: Alex Taylor, Jack Templin, Kipp Bradford, Jim Willis and Tom Hoffman are all members of the Providence Geeks, a group of information technology experts that now meets monthly at AS220 in Providence.
PBN photo/Stephanie Ewens

From left: Alex Taylor, Jack Templin, Kipp Bradford, Jim Willis and Tom Hoffman are all members of the Providence Geeks, a group of information technology experts that now meets monthly at AS220 in Providence.

Group meets to network, brainstorm

They work separately.

Jack Templin is the principal of Internet consultancy firm Thought Cap. Alex Taylor is a graphic designer for Big Ring Design. Tom Hoffman is a project manager for SchoolTool.

Kipp Bradford is the vice president of engineering for Design Lab. And Jim Willis is director of information technology for the Rhode Island secretary of state.

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But together, they’re just a big group of geeks.

The five men, all in their early to mid-30s, are members of the Providence Geeks, a loosely knit information technology group aiming to foster innovation and collaboration in Rhode Island.

Formed by O’Reilly Media editor Brian Jepson earlier this year, the group has forged new connections and attracted more than 30 “geeks” to its most recent event.

Monthly “Geek Dinners” are held at AS220, where participants network with colleagues, counterparts and potential investors. Faces get put to names and old acquaintances get to chat it up and eliminate the “six degrees of separation” that link the innovators.

The group also has a blog, at providencegeeks.wordpress.com, which gives viewers updates on the IT community in the state.

Concrete results are beginning to take shape because of Providence Geeks, said Templin.
Several people are in the process of getting jobs because of the community. In addition, participants have talked about collaboration and making improvements to existing technologies.

Willis, in his work at the secretary of state’s office, manages information applications for the state. One of them, eTown Crier, provides citizens with a database of agendas and minutes from all of the municipal and state agencies being held in Rhode Island.

While Willis said there was some interest from the state by people wanting to improve the system, no one in Rhode Island had come forward. But a programmer Willis met at a geek dinner looked to try some things with eTown Crier and recently completed a Macintosh “dashboard widget” for the database.

The community also allows for a quicker feedback cycle for innovations, something critical for fostering technology growth, Willis said.

The benefits to the group’s participants are just one of the goals of the Providence Geeks, however. Templin said the group is also looking to raise the profile of IT in Rhode Island. And if it can’t make it another Silicon Valley, he said, he hopes the group helps make Rhode Island a serious competitor in the technology sector.

“There’s an awful lot of potential for this [city] and state to be more of an info tech center than we are,” Templin said. “All of the right pieces are there.”

Bradford, echoing Templin’s sentiments, said the state needs to clot the “brain drain” it experiences from talented young professionals and innovative companies leaving the state. In many cases, he said, younger companies look to relocate across the border because being in Cambridge, near Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will make them more attractive to potential investors.

“There’s no reason for companies to relocate when Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Rhode Island and other fine institutions provide tremendous opportunities,” he said.

The group sees the IT sector as something the state can grow easily. While it supports Rhode Island’s efforts to attract biotechnology firms to the state, information technology can be developed with far less investment.

“One computer can allow someone to create SchoolTool,” Hoffman said. “The work that Jim is doing with the state doesn’t need supercomputers.”

So why, with all of the positive things being pushed, did they pick such a self-deprecating name?

It’s a term of endearment, the members said, quickly differentiating a “geek” from a “nerd.”

Taylor said the term geek denotes a person who is passionate about what they do.
“There are geeks of all different flavors,” Taylor said. “Ours just happens to be the intersection of technology, commerce and public policy.”

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