technology Photos Courtesy of David Yang of Coalition for Queens TECH MEET ON OPEN SOURCE BY ANGY ALTAMIRANO Members of the tech community got together under the spring sun for the first open source conference in New York City on the rooftop of Hunter’s Point Plaza. Open Tech NYC, organized by the Coalition for Queens, along with 10gen, an open source company, and others, took place on Saturday, March 30. Selling out days before the event, the close to 180 attendees ranged from newcomers in the open source community to those who have been involved for a longer time. Open source refers to software for which the source code is available free of charge to the public, as users or developers, to use, copy, modify, sublicense or distribute in the ways they see fit. The goal of Open Tech NYC was to provide the tech community with information on how open source is driving the NYC tech scene. Examples ranged from locally-grown open source projects to startups and big enterprises that run on open source and new organizations that developed in the Big Apple. “The speakers were really great and we were really fortunate,” said Jukay Hsu, founder of Coalition for Queens. “It’s a great start and something we want to build upon.” Among the speakers were Sumana Harihareswara, engineering community manager for the Wikimedia Foundation, Alan Hudson, director of Shapeways, and Tianhui “Michael” Li, data scientist for Foursquare. “People had really great reactions,” said Justin Dunham, product manager of 10gen and conference organizer. “They had no idea there was so much going on.” According to presenters and organizers, open source is an important element because it enables users to be in a collaborative community and be part of the technology they are using. “It builds community faster, people can own the software,” said Meghan Gill, director of community marketing for 10gen. “I think we are on the forefront of innovation.” Open Tech NYC Presenters and Organizers. www.queenscourier.com • april 2013 • lic courier 41
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