Notes from 08/15/2013
Attendance: Amelie, Ben, Dirk, Rami, Ron, Duana, Ola (Startup Bootcamp Founder in residence helping Achieved) and Rob (Achieved)
Social Media Week:
We receive gentle reminders that they still want us on board. It is a bit more than a month away and one offer was to give a talk in the education slot (23rd of Sept.). We could use that for promoting also other events (like Science Hack Day).
Achieved.co:
Startup in the Learning Space. Pitch after the Meeting
Python presentation at Python User Group last week:
Amelie gave a talk at the berlin python user group and got quite a good response: people joining as coaches as well as learners. We might want to do that more often, we have great presentations ready for that. We merged the new slides for more presentations of different length and with more or less details (from 1-min to 45-minute presentations). Find them all on slides.opentechschool.org .
Jugend Hackt:
Cool event run by cool people. They are doing fine and it will be awesome but we can help spread the word. They are especially looking for mentors and female mentors in particular.
So please spread the word!
HTML/CSS workshop:
After doing the workshop for the RailsGirls, there is a quite some interest to eventually get the HTML workshop going. Gio is working on it, based on her material from last year.
Learners Meetup:
Bea’s take on it: "I propose (again) to have it every two months instead of monthly. I predict more manageable tasks for the team and higher engagement with/from the audience. Crystal ball!"
Duana’s report on last meetup: it was good, 14 people came (24 signed up). The talk was really good and people were engaged and stayed long and seemed to like it a lot.
If the meetup is every 2 months the problem is then that those that want to give a presentation have to wait quite a lot. So Duana suggests that if there is a talk ligned up it should happen in the next month. If not then we can push it to two months later.
Another idea would be to have enough volunteers to rotate on the organisation (a bunch would organise it a month and others the next month, etc.).
Science Hack Day:
Confirmed that it can take place at Betahaus in November.
Action Item @ben : Connect Rami/Rachel to Technologie Stiftung Berlin
ImmoScout offered their space again:
It is the building of Telekom where ImmoScout is. Huge space: several meeting rooms of different sizes, a cafeteria (can also be used for events). Can host things in the evenings and weekend. We need to tell them in advance, especially so that they get everything we need sorted (internet, cables, etc.).
They are just charging out a few older laptops for the usage for IT-Labs and our contact tries to get the contracts in place so we could also borrow them for usage somewhere else - this might be a solution to our “let’s do more stuff for ppl, who don’t have a laptop on their own“. The laptops will be run by the IT-Labs USB-Sticks and we’ve been asked to contribute to the list of Software we want.
Action item: create the list of software, we want on the stick.
Opening Hardware:
Been discussing with Fablab. We can spend 150 EUR worth of equipment/tools for the workshop that the Fablab will reimburse us for. Nicolai will do that and will schedule the event (apparently going for a Saturday, will check with coaches and will keep in mind that the event needs to be advertised 2 weeks in advance).
Action Item @ben: draft a “legal” paper that participants would sign stating that they might hurt themselves and break the equipment they will bring and are aware of that and OTS can not be responsible for this.
Haiti:
We received a message from Anna Blume in Hamburg from LivingBridgesPlanet pointing us to the Haiti CodeCamp, who apparently are interested in also starting a local OpenTechSchool there. And they asked if someone could join their hangout on air on Saturday (5pm in Paris), preferably someone with relation to the area. Oh and there might also be someone in Rio interested in this.
Action Item @ben: Send that to global discuss and Discourse to see if someone local or connected to Haiti would like to represent us in the hangout and take it from there.
Action Item @amelie: If nobody is reacting, be the backup for the call (5p.m. Saturday)
Action Item @ben: Be Amélie’s backup if she can’t make it.
Hive:
The next event is scheduled to take place at Co.Up Sept 11th 7pm. Unfortunately Ben can’t join because he isn’t in Berlin and though the event probably can organise itself, it would be great to have someone knowing the space but also representing the OpenTechSchool to join and “host” the meeting. As we have a few people, who already have been at the event and are known to the Hive-Group, it should be possible. But it can also be someone, who is new to the Network but interested in joining.