As some of you know, there are elections going on right now for this year's New York Tech Meetup board. There are alot of great candidates with interesting ideas on how to help elevate New York City's tech scene, but I'd like to talk about one candidate who is helping solve NYC's most gaping problem: we need more hackers.
Startups in NYC are floundering like crazy to get good quality hackers. They're all hiring, but the hackers aren't there.
Evan has been tackling this problem for the extent of his tenure at NYU. He's been advising the ACM forever. And the Programming Team. And Free Culture. He's introduced countless students to the tech world, and has brought in speakers from Jimmy Wales to Tim Westergren to Richard Stallman.
Evan makes himself available to all students and encourages them to think outside the typical NYC/Finance box and seek tech jobs that will make them happy. He helped Max, Dan, Rafi and Ilya turn Diaspora into a reality (the default admin password on a clean install is "evankorth"). He's been pushing Tech@NYU from day one. And, of course, he founded HackNY, which is keeping students off the street (Wall Street). Last year, they placed 12 students in top NYC startups. This year, that number will double.
Having Evan on the board will get more young New Yorkers to hack, and will enrich our pool of programming talent. Help NYC out.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to study for one of Evan's tests...