New England Regional Developers - Announcements

New England Drupal Global Training Days Sprint

kelly — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 19:40:51 +0000

News Type:

OwnSourcing is once again helping to plan the New England Drupal Global Training Days sprint with Acquia and Genuine. The sprint is going to be held on January 30th and 31st at Genuine in Boston.

The focus of this year's sprint is helping to port modules from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8. Come join us for the sprint, either as a mentor or participant.

Press Release: NERD Summit 2015

Lissie — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 02:30:42 +0000

News Type:

Announcements

Press Release:

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Lissie Fein

contact@nerdsummit.org

NERD Summit: The Local Tech Conference for Everyone!

Amherst, MA - August 31, 2015 - NERD Summit is back! All are welcome to a free weekend of workshops, trainings, presentations, youth activities, and more, September 11th-13th at UMass Amherst’s Conference Center.

“We're super excited to bring the second annual Nerd Summit featuring digital technology workshops to the Valley,” said Kelly Albrecht, executive director of NERDs and local entrepreneur.

NERD Summit has something for everyone — from beginners to advanced professionals. Friday and Saturday have more than 50 workshops, training sessions, and panel discussions. Keynote speakers include Becky Wai-Ling Packard of Mount Holyoke College on Friday and Drupal experts Jen Lampton and Nate Haug on Saturday. Saturday also features a full track of workshops for high school students and kids ages 7 and up. Saturday will culminate with a party with food, drink, live music, and fun NERDy activities while you mingle.

Sunday at NERD Summit is a community contribution day. Come learn how to contribute to open source projects or help local nonprofits with Hack for Western Mass. Family-friendly options on Sunday include a Makerspace and LEGO robotics.

Thinking of a career change? Check out the Job Fair on Saturday! Want to improve your skills? Friday and Saturday are for you. Want to meet new NERDy friends? Check out the Meetup fair on Saturday with folks from local meetups representing. Want to come but have a little one who’s not quite ready for the keyboard yet? Childcare is available!

NERD Summit is sponsored by MassMutual and Last Call Media and is organized by New England Regional Developers, a local nonprofit with the mission of bringing digital skills to a wider audience and working to increase diversity in the local tech industry.

For more information about the event, including directions, parking information, and schedule, please visit https://nerdsummit.org/.

Post-Summit Party

Andrew Pasquale — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 02:08:27 +0000

News Type:

Announcements

Join us for food, drinks, games, and music!

After the Saturday sessions, we will gather for food and a cash bar. Music by blues musician Eli Catlin will accompany some creative NERD-y projects, retro gaming, and NERD bingo! It will be a good opportunity to see old friends, get to know new people, and have fun!

Hope to see you there!

Volunteer at NERD Summit!

Andrew Pasquale — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 02:07:51 +0000

News Type:

Announcements

We are looking for some volunteers to make the summit happen smoothly. We primarily need people to be room monitors and registration assistants. If you are interested, please signup here.

Thanks for being awesome!

Kids can be NERDs too!

Andrew Pasquale — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 02:07:09 +0000

News Type:

Announcements

The conference schedule is looking great!

And there are lots of great FREE workshops for kids at the NERD Summit 2015. We're helping to raise the next generation of innovators, creative thinkers, and technologists!

Check it out:

Saturday, September 12th
-----------------------------------
Build a webpage with HTML & CSS
Draw in 3D with SketchUp!
Game Programming with Construct 2
JavaScript is Everywhere!
Got an App for That?
Graphics Programming with Processing
Scratch Programming
Green Screen Video Fun
Minecraft
Programming in Python

Sunday, September 13th
---------------------------------
EV3 Robotics
Rube Goldberg chain reaction - WeDo Robotics
Makerspace with Arduino

You can find the full list of kids workshops here:
https://nerdsummit.org/session-tracks/youth

All workshops are free, but space is limited, so please register for the youth workshops to let us know you are coming. Age ranges vary by workshop, but are generally appropriate for either 7+ or 12+. Some laptops are available to borrow for the day as well.

Childcare for younger kids not quite ready to start hacking is available as well. Please register here: https://nerdsummit.org/2015

Youth activity plans are shaping up!

kelly — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 16:44:09 +0000

News Type:

Announcements

We are planning many workshops for the NERDSummit at UMass. There will be youth and beginner friendly sessions across the entire weekend. Saturday workshops will focus on coding, including Scratch, mobile app development, HTML & CSS, Javascript, Processing, SketchUp, Image Manipulation, and more. Sunday will focus more on robotics with EV3, WeDo, and a MakerSpace in collaboration with Amherst Media. More details coming soon.

It's going to be awesome! See you there!

2015 Keynoter: Becky Wai-Ling Packard

kelly — Fri, 10 Jul 2015 19:59:31 +0000

News Type:

Announcements

We are very excited to announce the addition of Becky Packard to the keynote line up for the 2015 NERDSummit!

Becky Wai-Ling Packard is Professor of Psychology and Education and the Director of the Weissman Center for Leadership at Mount Holyoke College where she works on faculty mentoring and student leadership development initiatives. She is a first-generation college graduate who attended the University of Michigan for her bachelor's degree and Michigan State University for her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology.

For the past twenty years, Packard has researched the mentoring and persistence of individuals from diverse backgrounds including students of color, community-college transfer students, first-generation college students, and women, with a focus on science and technology careers. She has presented her work at the national-level, such as for the National Academy of Science and Council of Independent Colleges as well as the state and local levels. She conducts workshops for faculty on mentoring and advising initiatives, and workshops for professionals focused on mentoring and diversity within businesses, professional societies, and community organizations.

Her research has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation, through the CAREER program and the Gender in Science and Engineering program. In 2005, she was recognized by the White House with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on early career scientists. Packard has published articles in several scholarly journals and she has also appeared in the New York Times’ on-line education blog and Inside Higher Ed. Currently, she is co-PI on a STEM transfer project funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education and a Google-funded project focused on peer mentoring for women in computer science. Packard's recent Whiting award will focus on STEM policy levers in the U.S. and Europe. Her book "Successful STEM Mentoring Initiatives for Underrepresented Students: A Research-Based Guide for Faculty and Administrators” will be published by Stylus later this year.

2015 Keynoters: Jen Lampton and Nate Haug

kelly — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 03:56:08 +0000

News Type:

Announcements

We are very excited to announce that Jen Lampton and Nate Haug will be keynoting the 2015 NERDSummit!

Jennifer Lea Lampton has been actively building sites with Drupal and participating in the open-source community since 2006. She maintains several of her own Drupal modules, and contributes issues & patches to many other projects as it relates to the needs of her work.

More recently however, Jen noticed Drupal shifting away from the grasps of the average web developer. Together with Nate "quicksketch" Haug, Jen has become one of the Co-Founders behind Backdrop CMS.

Nate "quicksketch" Haug is a developer who loves to work with web technologies. Nate has made numerous contributions to the Open Source project Drupal, including writing the original AJAX framework (Drupal 6), the File and Image modules (Drupal 7), and the dialog system (Drupal 8). He also maintains a number of contributed modules, including the popular Webform module.

Official 2015 Call for Proposals!

kelly — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:37:21 +0000

News Type:

Announcements

It is our pleasure to announce the official Call for Proposals for this year's NERDSummit, which is happening September 11-13 2015!

We invite anyone to propose any web development industry topic that they know something about and are passionate about.

The deadline for submissions for the 2015 NERDSummit, is 8/1/2015.

Make your proposal today!

2015 Registration is Open!

kelly — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:22:33 +0000

News Type:

Announcements

We have ticket options (including free) now live. Please complete the registration process and get your tickets!

The NERDSummit, this September 11-13 at UMASS/Amherst, is coming up quick and we have plenty of great news to share. We will be sending more important updates frequently over the next several weeks.

Please keep spreading the word! Forward this to anyone who might be interested in sponsoring and supporting this organization and its annual Summit!

We are making childcare arrangements again this year!

Our fallback plan is currently a low fee, but we are actively looking for a couple forward-thinking sponsors to help make this a free service to attendees!

See our sponsor information page if helping in this way interests you: https://nerdsummit.org/sponsors-information