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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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Students Gain Experience from Library Tech Competition “Electric Bookworm”

By Alyssa Haas | Bakersfield, CA

January 5, 2017

Winning teams with KIT Community founder Alyssa Haas and Bakersfield mayor-elect Karen Goh. Photo courtesy of Karen Goh

CSU Bakersfield along with the KIT Community hosted its first university hackathon “Electric Bookworm” on November 18-20, 2016 - drawing over 50 participants and mentors to campus. This event brought together sciences and humanities for an interdisciplinary competition to build technologies that local libraries need. It was only the third hackathon hosted in Bakersfield, but the largest so far.

No, this hackathon was not a competition to break into the library. It was more like a Random Hacks of Kindness competition, where programmers work with community partners to solve problems through technology. Hacking, in this sense, was to put pieces together to build something innovative AND useful.

Seven teams made up of mainly CSUB and Bakersfield College students competed over the weekend, designing and building prototypes for projects ranging from basic artificial intelligence to augmented reality to web-based tools. The challenging work was not just divided among the programmers; teams had to actually research the problems shared by the libraries and write reports showing how the technology fit a real need.

The students gained valuable experience over the weekend through work on their projects. They had the opportunity to attend workshops on computer science topics and digital humanities, as well as take tours of the CSUB Fab Lab and CSUB Library. There were also mentors available over the weekend from local industry and Kern County Libraries.

A special guest speaker, Balint Szoke, traveled from Silicon Valley to Bakersfield just to attend the hackathon and speak to students. An expert in military history, Balint spoke to students on the uses of technology in the study of war and combat decisions.

“I didn’t realize Bakersfield was this innovative. I am blown away by the community here,” said Balint in summary of his trip.

Mayor-elect Karen Goh also attended the hackathon, speaking to students about building technology to make a positive impact in the local community.

Teams were graded on three main points: technical prototype, community impact report, and presentation. A panel of CSUB Computer Science professors judged the technical prototype. A panel of local librarians from CSUB and Kern County Libraries judged the community impact report. A panel of local professionals judged the presentations. It wasn’t enough to just build something cool.

1st place team GOAT. Photo courtesy of Karen Goh.

The winning team GOAT with their project “Roomly” acted upon a need shared by many local libraries and a pain acutely felt by students - scheduling rooms. They developed a prototype that could schedule in real time. What propelled them to first place was the community impact report, which local librarians graded very highly. The team included four CSUB students and one BC student.

Team GOAT won over $200 in cash prizes, a wooden laser cut trophy, and a one week membership to the MESH Cowork space.

2nd place team ARtwork with Karen Goh. Photo courtesy of Karen Goh.

ARtwork, an augmented reality app, won second place. The app could recognize a piece of art in real time through a device’s camera and provide the user additional information about the art. This app could help libraries showcase their art collections in a unique and interesting way. It could also be used for museums.

3rd place team Library Chatbot with Karen Goh and member of Team GOAT. Photo courtesy of Karen Goh.

Library Chatbot, a virtual robot that can answer basic questions about library rooms and books, came in third. This “chatbot” could help relieve the long lines at the help desks as well as help library users get information quickly and easily. This team actually spent time to ask library users what their most common questions and needs were and polled library staff. They used this to inform their development of certain project features.

The KIT Community was excited to co-host this competition as a practical learning experience for local students. Events like this uniquely bring together community, students, professionals, and policymakers to reveal the true potential of local talent.

(from left) Kevin Mershon - KIT technical director, Alyssa Haas - KIT founder/director, and Addison Chavez - KIT projects coordinator at hackathon opening night. Photo courtesy of Kevin Mershon.

The local momentum for Bakersfield innovation continues into the new year. Bakersfield College is working with KIT to host its own hackathon “Public Health Renegades” in March 2017.

We challenge you to help make Bakersfield and Kern County a better place through locally developed technology.

If you are interested in more information about this event or future events, please email us at [email protected].

Event rules and information available here.

A picture gallery of images taken at the hackathon is available here.

You can view the Facebook Live video of the hackathon Closing Night here and Awards Ceremony here.

This hackathon in other media:

Renegade Rip - BC Students Take Third at Hackathon

CSUB - CSUB to Host First Electric Bookworm Hackathon

KGET - Library management hackathon at CSUB begins Friday

#hackathon #bakersfield #technology #libraries #library tech #csu bakersfield #csub

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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Electric Bookworm (eBookworm) Hackathon a library tech hackathon Nov 18-20, 2016 at CSU Bakersfield

This event is an innovation competition brought to you by the KIT Community and CSU Bakersfield to develop the best technology tool to help with library efficiency and patron access in Kern County that responds to specific needs of local libraries and the community.

Libraries are a place of accessible knowledge, opportunity, and history; a valued community resource. They can also be a place of invention and technology. The KIT Community and CSU Bakersfield invite you to compete to develop needed technologies to help the local libraries better serve the community.

This competition is open to all professions and experience levels. Teams will be formed at the event Friday night and work out innovations throughout the weekend. Students in the fields of computer science, engineering, business, education, and humanities are strongly encouraged to compete.

Teams will be judged on how well the technology tool fits a community need and how well the prototype for the technology tool is built.

THEMES:

library management and efficiency

patron access and outreach

TICKETS:

FREE for students - send email from CSUB, BC or university email account to [email protected] to receive free event code

$10 for non-students

additional cost for event t-shirt

Parking included for online ticket sales

Purchase tickets via this Eventbrite link

PRIZE:

Winning team will win a trophy and cash prize

LOCATION:

CSUB Science III Room 108 (Fri), CSUB Library Lab 5 (Sat/Sun)

RULES:

1. Development of all competition deliverables, including the technology prototype, must NOT start prior to event kickoff. Teams not following this rule will receive a zero score for any applicable categories of judging related to the deliverable developed ahead of event kickoff.

2. Teams must be between 2-5 team members.

3. Participants have until 12pm on Saturday to purchase their tickets and join a team. Participants who do not attend the Opening Night may add onto an existing team by this time, but may not create a new team.

4. Participants are not required to work at the available event space over the entirety of the weekend, but must notify the event organization team of remote work by email to [email protected]. This is to ensure adequate time to plan for amount of teams presenting at Closing Night and for event organization team to relay any updates throughout the weekend. Failure to notify may result in a score penalty.

5. Teams must submit Project Sheet including project name and list of team members with email addresses by 12pm Sunday. Teams must submit ALL OTHER deliverables by 6pm Sunday. Any deliverables received after this time will not be considered towards team scores.

6. Third party frameworks and libraries may be used, but must be declared in the technical prototype demonstration. A score penalty may be incurred for failure to declare as stated in Judging section below.

JUDGING:

Technology Deliverables: Teams must set up an appointment by the official method set up by the event organization team to conduct a demonstration of their technical prototype to all technology judges during the Sunday Closing Night event. Teams must sign up for a time slot by 6pm Sunday. These demonstrations must include scope of work attempted, technology used, degree of completion, and demonstration of execution. Missing any of the above areas will result in a loss of one point each from the execution score.

Breakdown of Scores:

Difficulty of Task (1-5 points) X Execution (1-5 points)

One team will be awarded an additional 5 points as Judge’s Favorite

Single score for this area, maximum of 30 points

Community Impact Deliverables: Teams must submit a 1 page Community Impact Report and Stakeholder Map by 6pm Sunday to [email protected]. Both documents should have team name and focus area on them. They should demonstrate research into the focus area, communicate how the technology fits into this area and fills a community need, and state the next steps to complete the project. Research should include solicitation of feedback from key stakeholders. Missing any of the above areas will result in a loss of one point each from the execution score.

Breakdown of Scores:

Depth of Analysis (1-5 points) X Delivery (1-5 points)

One team will be awarded an additional 5 points as Judge’s Favorite

Single score for this area, maximum of 30 points

Presentation: Teams must submit their presentations by 6pm Sunday to [email protected] by PDF or Powerpoint format. Other formats may be allowable but must be approved by event organizer prior to submission deadline to ensure technical compatibility. Presentations will be presented Sunday during Closing Night in the order of Project Sheets received by email. Presentations must be no more than 5 minutes in length and include project name, team member names, overview of focus area, communication of how the project fits into this area and fills a community need, and description of next steps to complete the project. Missing any of the above areas will result in a loss of one point each from the execution score.

Breakdown of Scores:

Communication of Material (1-5 points) X Quality of Delivery (1-5 points)

One team will be awarded an additional 5 points as Judge’s Favorite

Single score for this area, maximum of 30 points

SCHEDULE:

Friday, November 18

6:00pm - 8:00pm | Opening Night at CSUB Science III Room 108

Ideas will be presented and teams will be formed.

Saturday, November 19

9:00am - 5:00pm | CSUB Library Lab 5 will be open for developing ideas

5:00pm - 7:00pm | Networking dinner at Lengthwise at the Marketplace

Mentors and Experts will be brought in to answer questions and give talks

Workshops by community experts will be available throughout the day

Sunday, November 20

9:00am - 11:00am | Crepe Breakfast off-campus (ARRC Technology)

11:00am - 6:00pm | CSUB Library Lab 5 will be open for developing ideas

6:00pm | Deadline for basic prototypes, community need reports, and presentations

6:30pm - 9:00pm | Pitch Presentations and Closing Ceremony at CSUB Science III Rm 108

SPONSORS:

KIT Community - co-host

CSUB Natural Sciences, Mathematics & Engineering - co-host

CSUB Fab Lab

Mershon Enterprises

ARRC Technology

Ponce De Leon Enterprises

IDI-Tech

MESH Cowork

Creative Cowork

HackerEarth

CSUB Library - community partner

Kern County Libraries - community partner

COMPANIES/ORGS SCOUTING AT EVENT:

KIT Community student marketing assistant - part-time

IDI-Tech student marketing assistant - part-time

Mershon Enterprises software developers

Ponce De Leon Enterprises junior software developers

Creative Cowork graphic designer

send your resume to [email protected] with “e-bookworm - [insert company name]” in the header for any questions about these job openings

IDEAS FROM THE COMMUNITY:

Collect and Analyze Data of Library Usage to improve library efficiency and allocation of resources - submitted by Kern Citizens for Sustainable Governance

Software to manage volunteer time, activities, etc - submitted by Kern County Library Frazier Park Branch

Room scheduling for web/mobile - submitted by Kern County Library

CSUB Parking App or Parking Reservation Web Site - submitted by CSUB Librarians

Stiern Library Artwork Self-Guided Tour - submitted by CSUB Librarians

A kiosk that prints a map for students or visiting guests to know how to get where they are going - submitted by CSUB Librarians

A library exhibit iPad application - submitted by CSUB Librarians

A robot or chatbot to greet guests and answer questions about the library - submitted by the KIT Community

If you are a community expert or organization and would like to submit an idea for teams to consider, please send an email to [email protected] with the headline “e-bookworm - idea”.

QUESTIONS:

If you have any questions, send an email to [email protected] and use the subject "e-bookworm".

#csub #library #technology #hackathon #bakersfield

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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KIT has big plans for 2020. Interested? Send an email to [email protected] to set up a meeting with KIT founder Alyssa Haerle to discuss our mission!

#technology #bakersfield #kerncounty

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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The KIT Community has been in the news quite a bit recently. We thought it’d be good to summarize the recent coverage in a nice neat blog post:

The Bakersfield Californian

July 4, 2016 - Local entrepreneurs nurture tech scene

July 15, 2016 - Tech group plans hackathon to develop wildfire assistance software

The Moneywise Guys | Kern 1180AM/96.1FM

July 13, 2016 - Interview with Alyssa Haerle

KBAK Eyewitness News, CBS Channel 29

July 18, 2016 - Tech community sponsors competition to help wildfire victims

August 5, 2016 - Local tech enthusiasts compete to help victims of wildfires

Valley Public Radio | National Public Radio

July 26, 2016 - Interview: Growing tech scenes in Fresno, Kern counties

August 9, 2016 - Erskine fire residents wonder whether rebuilding is worth it

This last month has been super awesome. Thank you to everyone who made this last month possible! Excited for our growth and the steps ahead in our journey to make Bakersfield and Kern County tech shine!

#news #technology #bakersfield #kerncounty #startups #hackathon

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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Video Game Industry Professional at 19

By Alyssa Haerle | Bakersfield, CA

This is part five in a blog series called “Doing Tech Business in Bakersfield”.

Many young people become interested in a career in technology and software development through their love of video games. It becomes an entry point of fascination and inspires endless tinkering.

Tomas Antonio Ponce De Leon is no different. He is a senior at Cal State University Bakersfield and currently studies Business. He also studied Computer Science. He spent his early school years in Delano before moving closer to the “big city” of Bakersfield, to Oildale. He went to North High School. And he loved video games.

The dream of making your own games, however, rarely manifests directly into a career in the industry. Much like those that dream of getting into Hollywood.

Tomas’ dreams were no different, except that he started his career in the actual video game industry at 14. After five years in the industry, he now owns his own video game consultation company.

KIT recently sat down with Tomas to hear how he managed to accomplish so much at such a young age.

Tell me about your business.

I started Ponce De Leon Enterprises about a month ago after working at the national and international level of the video game industry. I have four clients already. I provide consultation on the development of video games. I also help with publishing, marketing, and copyrights for the games.

The video game industry has much in common with Hollywood. There are many different people working in the background, like those that build the tools and building blocks for developing games and those that publish and distribute games. I’m on the business end.

The market is really saturated. Anyone who knows how to code can essentially make their own games, so there is a large influx of independent (indie) games being developed. That’s where my business can come in and consult for new games and help them be more successful.

How did you get into the industry?

I am not much different from others in this respect. Gaming was my hobby. When I was 14, I started doing community blogging for an online gaming magazine called Destructoid. I wrote blog articles about game design, critical analysis of games, how to make better games. Through this community, I met and networked with other writers. Eventually, people in the industry took notice. I was invited by some of the writers to join in another project. I started getting paid to write and became an official gaming journalist. That’s how I got in.

How did that turn into starting your own company?

I graduated from high school at 15 and started college at CSUB at 16. I majored in Computer Science to start but then switched to Business. I was inspired by the local tech community to build and create things. There’s something about adding something to the world that wasn’t there until you created it.

I had a series of mentors who have helped me. Kevin Mershon of Mershon Enterprises. Giovanni Banducci of Idea Tailors. Dustin Pitcher of The Marcom Group. I am very glad to have this support circle. I feel like I can do anything.

I wanted to start a company for game consulting. I wanted to foster better feedback loops by working with developers to make better games and forming long-term strategic partnerships nationally and internationally.

I used my experience with game design and applied it to developing my own business.

What has been your biggest challenge in terms of doing business in Bakersfield?

Business in Bakersfield is slow. Response time is slow. Startup businesses have a doomsday clock on them; they can only spend so much money before they go bankrupt. In places like Silicon Valley and other large startup communities, everything moves really fast. They can’t waste time. They need to grow and scale as fast as possible to beat their own internal doomsday clock.

Larger more established businesses in Bakersfield have a much longer doomsday clock. There is little urgency. The pipeline for business is much longer, and they don’t make decisions fast. This makes it very hard to coordinate things when doing business between these two very different types of business ecosystems. It can take weeks to schedule a single meeting, even when both parties have already said they want to meet.

What do you think are the advantages?

Video games are about chasing trends. You need to be very good at identifying trends that other people haven’t found yet. Then you need to get people to chase you.

There is value and potential here in Bakersfield that is being neglected by the outside world. We have a bad reputation for many reasons, like pollution. So not as many other people are looking here for tech business opportunities. That’s what makes it the perfect hot spot for startup businesses, because it looks like an unattractive market from the outside. I want to be at the leading edge of the “Bakersfield” trend. It’s a sleeper hit.

If you could change one thing, what would it be?

Attitude. I think even people who are doing business and live here belittle Bakersfield. Respect is huge. We need to change people’s attitude about our city. If that changed, everything would change.

Do you think your young age is more of a challenge or advantage?

Definitely more of a challenge. It’s an advantage in that it’s unique and captures people’s attention. Outside of that, people underestimate me because of my age. They don’t take me seriously. Also, logistically, there are many business networking events that I can’t attend, because they are 21 and over.

Locally, this is a big issue. Many of the “young professionals” groups are for the mid twenties to mid thirties professionals. What do you call young professionals who are younger than the young professionals? Are we not professionals?! There is nothing there to support people as young as me to start their own business. This barrier really shouldn’t exist.

Young people have spark, energy, and passion. We need to focus this energy to help more young people create their own businesses and projects before this energy dissipates to complacency. There is KIT though. And Mershon Enterprises. They have been a great local resource for me.

What would you say to young people in Bakersfield?

Don’t be afraid to challenge the status quo. There are people who will try to stop you or hold you up, but there are also people here that can support you and guide you. Don’t be afraid of failing.

For me, I just decided one day to start writing for the gaming magazine I liked. I then realized that often times that’s all it takes. Just get started.I figured it out as I went. I kept at it. You have to believe you can do it and then just do it. That’s how you learn. Experience and experimentation.

If you are interested in learning more about Tomas and following his work, you can visit his company website: http://pdl.enterprises/. You can also add him on LinkedIn.

This article is part five of the “Doing Tech Business in Bakersfield” blog series of the Kern Innovation & Technology (KIT) Community. If you would like to be featured in our blog for this series, send us an email at [email protected].

To read previous blogs in this series, click on the links below:

Part 1. Doing Tech Business in a Handshake Town

Part 2. What is Online Marketing Worth?

Part 3. 8 Lessons from Kern’s 1st Public Hackathon

Part 4. Bakersfield’s Female Programming Champion

#videogames #technology #business #gamedevelopment

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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Bakersfield’s Female Programming Champion

By Alyssa Haerle | Bakersfield, CA

This is part four in a blog series called “Doing Tech Business in Bakersfield”.

You might think that Bakersfield would be a tough place to be a female programmer. If it is, I certainly couldn’t tell, because Beth Armitage makes it look easy.

The Cal State University Bakersfield Computer Science senior and graduate of Bakersfield College is one of the up and coming programming talents of Kern County. I cannot say how her experience in school or out in the community has been like as a woman in tech, but I do know the local tech community has massive respect for her and her skills. Beth’s team won Bakersfield’s first public hackathon “Distill Your Idea”, where they built a cohesive and functional application in under three days.

She is impressive.

The KIT Community recently sat down for coffee with Beth to talk about her experience at the hackathon and in the tech community.

First of all, what was your winning tech idea at the competition?

My team’s idea was “What’s Happening”, a social events web application that pulls events from bars’ and other venue’s Facebook pages and puts them all in one place. Users can also request certain types of events, like a karaoke night, so businesses can see what consumers want in terms of events. “What’s Happening” also has the ability for exponential feedback, because it reaches the Facebook friends of each user that chooses to share an event they would like through the app. It would be able to track that post to count likes and pull comments. If 5 users have 100 Facebook friends that see their post, we just reached 500 people.

Tell us the story of how you developed the idea and formed a team.

I knew we could do planning beforehand and met with people who were going to the event. I also invited some friends that I thought I might want to work with. We brainstormed ideas. Initially, we wanted to do something for the safety theme, but we had trouble coming up with an idea we liked. Then we thought of an event application, because there are no good central places to get that information in an easy to use, easy to find way. Then at the competition, we managed to convince others to join our team, who hadn’t chosen a team yet.

What do you think about the experience?

Very fun. I got to work with a more experienced developer, which really helped. I learned a lot. I also got to learn the business side, which I hadn’t even considered before. The competition wasn’t high pressure or stressful like I thought it’d be.

Other students were a little intimidated by the event and decided not to attend. But you didn’t.

I’ll admit I was a little nervous to participate at first. I wasn’t sure if I should encourage some of my classmates to attend, because I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but I was ready for the challenge. As the event progressed, I was more and more glad I decided to participate. It started with high energy to get us going, and went smoothly throughout the weekend. I’m excited for any future hackathons that KIT holds.

What are the biggest thing you achieved over the weekend personally?

To be able to take a good sounding idea and represent it as a usable program in such a short amount of time with people I’ve never worked with. I was lucky to work with such motivated and bright people. Jacob Sherman is the coolest programmer ever. He contributed to the technical implementation of the application, and was really fun to work with. I was astonished at how quickly he picked up Angular, despite never having worked with it before. It was great to work with a more experienced developer to bounce ideas off of and solve problems with.

The business side was taken care of by Paige Loya and Jonathan Prine. I couldn’t believe that Paige was actually reaching out to local businesses to push them to add events to Facebook. She even created a test page called “The Madre Motel” (go like it on Facebook!) to be able to pull data from. She also took action when I told her we needed to harvest a list of page IDs from local bars and breweries. She found their pages, and pulled their ID numbers for us. Jonathan really helped polish our idea and create a business plan to make our app successful. He really sold our idea and built a fiscal plan for businesses that want to sign up for a premium account.

Overall, each member took action and I really couldn’t have done it without them. We all won. I agree with Jacob, when after we were announced as the winners, he mentioned that he felt like we won twice because overall, the weekend was a lot of fun.

How has working with the local tech community helped supplement your CSUB experience?

The biggest thing is the ability to apply industry knowledge to classwork. I’ve gained more experience using tools like version control. Version control is a system where a code base is managed. It lets multiple users work on the same project at the same time, and allows the work to be easily integrated. It allows users to track changes and revert to previous versions. If I have made several updates, and notice that part of the code is not working as expected when tested, I can see what I changed in order to track down how to fix it.

I’ve also been able to get experience in product applications like security, a topic not covered in any of the classes I took, because, I don’t know, they didn’t have time or something. It’s really important to know though.

It’s really nice to feel like part of the tech community. I wouldn’t have gotten as much out of CSUB without working with the tech community.

You’ve had an internship and mentor in the tech community, right?

Yes, I really wouldn’t have gotten where I am today without the mentorship of Kevin Mershon. He is such an awesome programmer, and to be able to learn from him has been more than I could ever ask for. I met him when I was a student at Bakersfield College. I was able to job shadow him to be able to get a real world perspective on programming, and from there he took me in and started teaching me industry knowledge that school couldn’t supply. I really look up to him and hope to be as good a developer as him someday. Programming aside, he’s also been a good friend. There’s been many times I hit a wall in school and I forget how much I’ve learned. His confidence in me really helped keep me going.

I currently work for a local software company, Mershon Enterprises, Kevin’s company. The job includes membership at the MESH cowork space. I go to the programming meetups there too, the ones that don’t conflict with class. I participate in the MESH and KIT events, too.

What is it about Bakersfield that you think makes it difficult to develop a new tech idea?

Difficult to get a wide base of users. The tech community is small, less people than other areas. I guess that’s the biggest difficulty. It doesn’t seem like there’s a big difference to other places, except size.

What about for your team’s tech idea?

Overall, the finished product would probably do pretty well in Bakersfield. People like apps on their phone, and people like to go to events. If the app were fully built out, it could be used to find local events in other cities as well. For development, a larger tech community would help because there would be more people to choose from to help develop the idea, and more developers who have more experience.

What might make it easier?

There’s a coworking space to work at, MESH. The coworking space is a quiet space to work at with other people working on similar stuff. Other programmers. There aren’t people like at Starbucks asking if I’m hacking a computer.

That’s actually happened to you?!

Yes, I was working on my senior project one day at Starbucks and some guy sitting next to me working at his own computer looked over my shoulder and said, “You aren’t hacking my computer are you?” I politely told him no, I’m a Computer Science student working on some homework. I then showed him my senior project, Sequoia Grove, an employee scheduling application.

Wow.

People at MESH understand when I explain what I’m working on. They’ll even help and give me advice. It makes my work better. There’s also plenty of people here, who are interested in learning. But it’s also difficult to find one place to go to for events in Bakersfield, so there would be a need for our app locally.

If you could wish for ONE thing to change, what would it be?

Having learned so much from a mentor outside of school, I would really like to see a mentorship program at school. Not only for Computer Science majors, but for all majors, where students can connect with industry professionals and get a head start on the information they need to know for the real world coming from real world professionals. In addition, it would be cool if the Computer Science department specifically offered some lectures from industry professionals where we would be able to learn a new concept or topic. Something we could expand on in our free time. As a Computer Science student, if we can learn a cool new concept or tool that gives us the possibility to expand on, we then have our summer free time covered.

Finally, tell about your experience as a female programmer in an industry of mostly guys.

When I took my first programming class at Bakersfield College, I didn’t even realize the lack of female programmers. When I transferred to CSUB, I did feel a little out of place at first, but it might have been the pressure of being at a 4 year university. Overall, my classmates have treated me with respect as a fellow student, aside from maybe one or two outliers.

In my experience with the industry, I really feel welcome and respected overall by industry professionals. I’ve been built up by more experienced developers locally that have offered advice or complimented my code or technical skills.

I do want to share one story though that made me mad. I overheard a man presenting his company for a proposed technical collaboration on a project with a different company in an environment where everyone in the room could be assumed to be in the tech industry. As he was trying to sell his collaboration, he was describing his company as “very much of a guy environment”. He said that they would tear each other’s ideas down in order to make them better. Then he looked right at me, and abruptly changed the topic with the other company representative. Does his company not make an effort to hire technical women? What makes a guy environment better than a diverse one? I immediately felt unwelcome, and left some time after that.

Overall, life is what I make of it. I have the ability overlook a snide comment, and I can decide to not aspire to work for companies that aren’t welcoming to everyone. I do have a passion to help get more women interested in the tech industry because I feel like I would have been further along at this point if I had discovered it earlier in life.

Be like Beth. She is awesome.

If you are interested in learning more about Beth and following her work, you can visit her website: http://bethgrace5.github.io/app/index.

This article is part four of the “Doing Tech Business in Bakersfield” blog series of the Kern Innovation & Technology (KIT) Community. We will be updating this series every other week. If you would like to be featured in our blog for this series, send us an email at [email protected].

To read previous blogs in this series, click on the links below:

Part 1. Doing Tech Business in a Handshake Town

Part 2. What is Online Marketing Worth?

Part 3. 8 Lessons from Kern’s 1st Public Hackathon

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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#summer camp #stem #robotics

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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8 Lessons from Kern’s 1st Public Hackathon

By Alyssa Haerle | Bakersfield, CA

This is part three in a blog series called “Doing Tech Business in Bakersfield”.

Just over two weeks ago, April 8-10, 2016, Bakersfield and Kern County were brought further into the startup fold with their first ever public hackathon “Distill Your Idea”. It was historic. It was stressful. It was...actually, a success!

And we made it happen. Not just talk. We acted. Finally...

Before we go any further, I should probably explain. Hackathon. Isn’t that or shouldn’t that be...illegal?

Okay, so the goal of the event is NOT to break into something and steal personal data. Think more like life hacks, ways of doing something that are innovative and useful. The goal of a hackathon is to develop an innovative idea (like a nightlife app, a way to set up pub crawls, or a wine tasting app) and rapidly prototype and test it. Usually this involves some programming, some customer interviews, and some business planning. You do all this in a very limited period of time, like a weekend, and present on the final night. Think Shark Tank. It’s a very unique kind of competition.

That being said, here is what I learned from proposing, organizing, marketing, supporting, and hosting the “Distill Your Idea” hackathon in Bakersfield, CA.

1. Don’t call it a hackathon.

Yes, we are in California, but that doesn’t mean that everyone knows what a hackathon is. When talking to someone in Bakersfield who went to business school in San Jose (so close to Silicon Valley!), I used the word hackathon to describe the event. First of all, they did not know what a hackathon is. Second, they wisely advised that I should not call this event a hackathon when marketing it in Bakersfield. It might scare people.

So what did we call it? A unique engineering competition.This did mean I had to constantly explain the format of the competition and what it was about, but it at least didn’t scare people away and make them think we were about to compete to steal identities. Small victories.

2. Local businesses were actually interested in helping.

There is widespread belief among the local tech community that local businesses just aren’t as interested in new technology. This belief is rooted in their own experience. It’s not like it comes from nowhere. But, at the same time, our hackathon showed that there are businesses that care. We found that newer businesses founded or led by younger business owners tended to be more interested.

Support from non-tech companies like Temblor Brewing Company and Union Station Deli really helped the tech community see what can be possible in Bakersfield. We definitely need more of this, but it is a reassuring start!

3. The local tech community can pull together to make things happen.

This event actually tested how cohesive and collaborative the local tech community is. Everyone here likes to say that Bakersfield is about coming together and supporting each other. However, the various silos of activity with their lack of collaboration and vast geographic spread across the county can start to make you think that cohesion may prove to be really, really hard.

How can I possibly get all those people to work together? If I can’t, I’m pretty much on my own here, right? Wrong. So many people helped. I was surprised and inspired! No one else was surprised though: “That’s Bakersfield for ya”.

4. In-kind sponsorship may be better than a cash donation.

When you are just starting out, it can be difficult to secure cash donations, especially in an area where businesses aren’t entirely sure what you are doing. In-kind sponsorship can be counted as loss or within the marketing budget of a company. It is also easier for businesses to see a benefit, as they can see concretely how their sponsorship is being used. Many nonprofits in the area have told me how much benefit they get from in-kind sponsorship.

The in-kind sponsorship can also be worth more than what the company could have given in cash. It can also be cooler. Our lead sponsor Temblor Brewing gave us a personal tour of their brewery during our competition.

5. Having a mascot helps build hype.

The hackathon itself didn’t have a mascot, but our community organization the KIT Community does. The KIT fox is an adorable stuffed fox with a little white scarf. She posed everywhere for publicity photos...at Temblor Brewing, at Union Station Deli, at various networking events. She is a hype master.

6. Write down the small details sooner.

This is not just to actually remember them, but also to delegate out more easily when you eventually get steamrolled with everything. So many things happen in the course of planning a large event. You may have written out and distributed 80% of your plans and ideas well in advance, which is important. But have you ever actually thought about how important those little 20% things are? Cards to hold up to show speakers their time is expiring. Turns out, those are rather important for keeping things moving.

7. Fun themes help to draw in people if you can’t afford a big prize.

I had been trying to find a good, responsible theme for a while and left myself some runway to plan it out. The problem was in getting and securing local sponsors. We thought we needed a sponsor before setting a date. With the timelines constantly moving back and things moving slowly, I was running out of time with the runway I had given myself. I was telling everyone April. It’s the only way I thought of to make sure we actually did it: stake my reputation on it happening.

After some frustrating moments and late night pool pow wows with my planning team, I finally had a breakthrough. Guys, let’s just host it ourselves at the MESH cowork space and with some random theme that’s fun. People will come if it sounds fun. What did we choose? Alcohol. And you know what...it was really, really fun. No better excuse to drink mimosas and sample various wines than being able to legitimately claim that you are doing research.

8. We can do this again.

There are many, many things I learned from this experience, but the most important, in my opinion, is this last one. We didn’t pull a rabbit (or fox?) out of a hat. It wasn’t just dumb luck. I am confident we can do this again in Bakersfield and have it be successful. The Bakersfield startup community is on the map. Now let’s keep this train moving.

To see more funny pictures and what we did at Distill Your Idea, you can check out this slideshare presentation and this photo album.

Watch out for our next hackathon (or engineering competition). We are planning for August 2016. If you are interested in being on the planning committee, send an email to the KIT Community at [email protected].

Tell us about your experiences with hosting unique events in the comments! We will be updating the “Doing Tech Business in Bakersfield” blog series every other week. Send us an email to join the list of tech businesses we profile and interview! We will be interviewing the leader of the winning Distill Your Idea team, Beth Armitage. Yay for female programmers!

To read previous blogs in this series, click on the links below:

Part 1. Doing Tech Business in a Handshake Town

Part 2. What is Online Marketing Worth?

#hackathon #innovation #bakersfield #kern county

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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ClassroomKIT

Want to bring the KIT fox to your class? Post to Facebook or Instagram using the hashtag #classroomkit and why you want to bring the KIT fox to your class. If your post gets 20 or more likes, the KIT fox will visit your classroom and present about technology and entrepreneurship.

Promotion ends June 10, 2016.

School must be located in Kern County. Organized home school groups of 10 or more students are also eligible. The KIT fox visit will depend on teacher approval.

#classroom #technology #kids #kitfox

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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Doing Tech Business in Bakersfield #2: What is Online Marketing Worth?

By Alyssa Haerle

Through networking and socializing in Kern County, I have gotten the distinct impression that some businesses here don’t see the value of having a website, much less having a Facebook page and regularly updating it. When so much business is word of mouth and face to face, the online realm can come across to these business owners as removing the soul and human connection they love about doing business.

Some businesses definitely recognize the reasons to have a web and social media presence, but really do not have an understanding of what building and maintaining that costs. When they find out how many spaces are actually after the dollar sign in their quote, they are caught up in sticker shock.

How do you value something that is virtual?

On March 25, 2016, I sat down with Vanni Banducci from IdeaTailors to find out what it is actually like to start a tech business in Bakersfield that is focused on online marketing. I asked @valuevanni (his Twitter account name) how Bakersfield values Vanni.

First of all, what does your tech business do?

IdeaTailors is a marketing consultant company specializing in digital marketing for clients to acquire an online audience and customers and improve conversion with the use of technology. It’s like print and TV advertising, but with the ability to collect more data. You can track audience behavior and test what approach works better in a more systematic way.

So...it’s basically marketing...that is online. Online marketing.

Yes...[rethinking explanation] I simplify communication with the customer and use technology to figure out the best way. Technology gives me feedback.

Tell us the story of how you started your business.

It’s not really that exciting. I started in February 2015 out of necessity. I had trouble finding a path for my desired career in Bakersfield. I decided that to start working, I had to create my own work. This was after 6 months of job searching for web developer roles. I was so disappointed with this inability to find this sort of work, so I took my destiny into my own hands.

Marketing is always a different story, different challenge. So I started IdeaTailors.

What is the funniest lead you have gotten since starting your business?

Someone called excitedly with an idea. Said he would call back. Never did...

Didn’t you try to help a Bay Area idea once?

Yeah, I guess that one is kinda funny. It was for a yelp-like service and I was contacted to help develop a minimum viable product. They were from the Bay Area, students. Well, it turns out I was just more knowledgeable than the previous guy. They were really looking for someone to help build this for free while they tried to get funding. They hadn’t actually validated what their idea was, just had the idea.

What are the best results you’ve achieved for a local client?

I started a new contract recently for a water well drilling company. Very quickly they started getting a lot of attention on Facebook. That is going pretty well.

Didn’t you help a teacher get funded?

Okay, so yeah, a teacher wanted to get robots for her class through donorschoose.org and needed $600. By posting and having the link shared through social media, her program was funded in a couple days. We weren’t paid, she wasn’t a client, it was just something we wanted to do. She was doing something cool, we wanted to help.

You also built followthefox.org.

Yes, we should all follow and join the fox.

What is it about Bakersfield that makes it difficult for you to do business?

Oh boy…(takes a few deep breaths)...okay.

The first thing I noticed is a lack of use of technology. They’ll use phone, text to communicate; they won’t use Skype. You have to drive across town. Literally across town. I have driven all the way across town for a scheduled marketing meeting and the people weren’t there. This meeting was just to talk about doing business.

Breathe…

So...Bakersfield has diversity. Marketing is usually seen by businesses as a shotgun approach, where they send a single message. But targeted marketing could be more effective and is actually very feasible in online marketing. Businesses here often don’t understand this.

What makes it easier?

You can go up to almost anyone and say hello. People smile back, say hello. People are welcoming. The technology community is very collaborative. Everyone is in the same boat. Everyone wants to help each other. I get a lot of support here. My family is here, my friends. And Bakersfield is starting to have more interesting activities for technology.

If you could wish for ONE thing to change, what would it be?

Everything is so separated, but everyone views it as a hometown. People say it’s easier to do small business here. Cheaper to live. But it’s not. It’s really hard. You need a lot of reserves. Here it requires so much of your time just to get people to know you exist. The pace of business is very slow. This pace only helps well-established businesses. It doesn’t help new businesses, and definitely not a technology business. Bakersfield is lying to itself. We need to take a deep inward look at ourselves. Everyone is in their own bubble.

You have one more thing, I can sense it.

Give feedback. People don’t like saying no, but in reality, leaving the door open indefinitely leaves the tech business owner hanging and is really really frustrating. Just say no, not right now, it will take me months to think about this; just don’t leave us hanging.

If you could erase ONE myth about online marketing, what would it be?

Just having a website or Facebook page is not enough. You have to have a system to track how people interact with these pages and to funnel people to your page and to your services to actually buy something from you. People get discouraged by this. Without the system though, your online marketing is passive. You have to get beyond the thinking that “if you build it, they will come immediately”. You have to think long term.

I think Bakersfield values Vanni, but not enough people know what he does and can do. He spends much of his time, like many tech businesses here, trying to educate and inform about what online marketing actually is and why businesses should even use it. What is online marketing worth to the average business in Bakersfield? It may not be much now, but Vanni seeks to change that. Like all great endeavors talked about in Bakersfield, it takes someone to actually lead the charge and start doing. You can follow IdeaTailors and Vanni here:

His website: ideatailors.biz

His Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ideatailorsbiz

His Facebook group: http://on.fb.me/1QWj7G6

His twitter: @valuevanni

Tell us about your experiences with online marketing in Bakersfield or having your tech expertise valued in the comments!

We will be updating the “Doing Tech Business in Bakersfield” series every other week. Send us an email at [email protected] to join the list of tech businesses we profile and interview!

Find out more about the KIT Community at www.followthefox.org

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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Guest Post from Quinlynn, a KIT Fox <3 Tech Winner!

Quinlynn won 3rd place in the KIT Fox <3 Tech Kid’s Drawing Contest. She will be awarded in a ceremony Thursday, April 7 at MESH Cowork, where her drawing will be displayed. Below is a guest post she wrote to the KIT Community!

My name is Quinlynn Woolsey. I am 11 years old, and am a 6th grader at American Elementary, where I am an Honor Roll student and serve on the Student Council. I also play flute in the band, and participate on the volleyball and track teams. I have an older brother, 2 older sisters, and 2 younger brothers. I love to draw and am very excited to be one of the winners of the KIT Fox ♥ Tech Kids Drawing Contest.

When I read that we should "draw the KIT fox using new technology," I guess I misunderstood a little, because I thought I was supposed to use pieces of new technology to form a kit fox, rather than draw a kit fox who was using the technology himself. So, my kit fox has a smartphone for a face, an HDTV for a body, a computer mouse for a tail, Wii remotes for front legs, and wireless microphones for back legs. I think he's a pretty cool kit fox! Thank you for selecting my drawing as one of your winners!

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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Announcing the Winner of the KIT Fox <3 Tech Drawing Contest, Giana from Bakersfield, CA!

Thank you to Creative Cowork for judging and to Mershon Enterprises for sponsoring the prize. Giana will receive a $50 Amazon Gift Card and unveil her framed drawing during a ceremony at MESH Cowork, where it will be displayed. More information about the ceremony to follow. Jacklyn of Bakersfield won 2nd place with her robotic fox below:

Quinlynn of Bakersfield won 3rd place with her kit fox made up of technology below:

Honorable Mentions go to Jackson and Lucas for their kit fox drawings below:

Thank you to everyone that submitted photos and congratulations to the winners!

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kerninnovation-blog · 9 years ago

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By Alyssa Haerle | Bakersfield, California

This is the first in a blog series called “Doing Tech Business in Bakersfield”.

Okay, so Bakersfield is not really a town. The total urban population is over 400,000 people. A town is something you can barely find on a map, where every mailing address formatter wants to believe you actually meant somewhere else, like Green Valley. No, Bakersfield is a city, but the people that live and work here associate more with a small town atmosphere.

One example is the handshake rule.

To do business here, you have to meet people face to face and develop a relationship. You have to physically shake their hand. They have to know you. You cannot just have an online presence for marketing. People do have to be able to find you online to look for more information; usually it’s for directions. However, you are not likely to be stumbled upon online by locals who are not already looking for you.

Coming from the outside, this can be hard. What if you really do not know anyone local? And if you are spending much of your time developing and working on your business, even if you are a local, then how are you supposed to go about meeting everyone? You would get no work done, right? Can’t I just advertise online like in the big Silicon cities?

I have started to find inroads. Here are two things I think have been very helpful.

1. Have vision.

If you dream big and your ideas resonate with others, you will start getting noticed and people will talk about you. Think of something larger than yourself, larger than your company, larger than your industry. Have something greater you are trying to achieve, especially one that provides a benefit or service to the local community. Make sure it is in some way connected to your business. This all creates draw. People will want to meet you and introduce others to you. It is highly likely that others have dreamed the same dreams, but do not have the time to make them a reality. You do not have to change the world, but you should have goals.

Pro tip: people may not be able to communicate to others what your tech business actually does, but they’ll remember your vision.

2. Okay, now tell everyone you know and meet.

Yes, actually get out of the building. Find networking events on Facebook and Meetup.com. Ask people you meet there for advice on other networking events to attend. They will know which might be more worth your time, which may save you the trouble of attending an event that is not actually focused on business. Also, be sure that when you talk about your ideas, you use as little technical jargon as possible. Don’t assume that people will already know what you are talking about. You want to explain it in a way that is not only easy for people to remember, but also easy for them to relate to others.

Pro tip: the more you talk about your business with local residents, the better you will be able to refine and distill your ideas. Also, most importantly, you can start to localize your delivery and make it Bakersfield-friendly.

The advantage of the handshake town mentality?

Face to face interactions are important. Word of mouth here is one of the strongest forms of marketing. When someone verbally refers you, it can be a stronger lead than a casual online click sometimes. It means that someone has put skin in the game in the form of reputation. Convert this lead and provide excellent service, and you could be looking at a pretty loyal customer who will talk about your business with others they know.

Tell us about your experiences with this handshake town in the comments!

We will be updating the “Doing Tech Business in Bakersfield” blog series every other week. Send us an email to join the list of tech businesses we profile and interview!

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