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ACTION PLAN 2019

1. Our Three Goals

  1. Build a sustainable coding community
  2. Educate programmers
  3. Build talent pool large enough to support building minimum viable products for startups and support startups growing rapidly.

1.1. Objective 1 - Build a sustainable coding community

Success looks like :: Programmers know that a vibrant developer community exists with learning opportunities, networking events, and opportunities for work.

1.1.1. Actions to build community

  1. Create a board tasked with running the ADA that includes a succession plan for 2020
  2. Have a meetup every 4-6 weeks with a speaker covering a specific topic and provide food to attendees to encourage participation. Meetups have a rotating focus: soft skills, technical skills, and community development that are underscored once per quarter.
  3. Act as a marketing vehicle for other organizations such as Girls Who Code and niche groups that other developers would like to start such as a game developer meetup. A mailing list is maintained with a monthly newsletter detailing out programming events each month for people to attend along with a Slack channel for developers to interact.
  4. Have representation in the community to colleges and government organizations.
  5. Participate in career fairs to spread awareness and provide a support system for programmers to interact before and after getting their first job
  6. Provide a unified front to represent developers to industries that are interested in knowledge work based in Alaska

1.2. Objective 2 - Educate programmers

Success looks like :: Through participation in the ADA, developers will “level up” their skills to be more effective at work and in their personal projects.

1.2.1. Actions to educate programmers

  1. Meetups will be focused on specific educational topics
  2. Partner with organizations to put on 3-4 day bootcamps for specific technologies. Topics are sourced from startup companies, employers, and developers looking for specific skills.
  3. Bootcamps will be provided at subsidized costs to independent developers
  4. Hackathons will be put on with a focus on utilizing skills learned in bootcamps or new technologies that reinforce new skills.

1.3. Objective 3 - Build talent pool large enough to build MVP’s for startups and support startups growing rapidly

Success looks like :: A Large enough talent pool will exist that a growing company can find the talent required to build their minimum viable product and eventually grow a company with knowledge workers based in Alaska.

1.3.1. Actions to build talent pool

  1. Engage with businesses to find out what skills are needed
  2. Work with programmers to foster education from level 0 to level 3 and 4 programmers

2. Events

2.1. Meetup Details

The Dev Alliance sponsors statewide meetups every 4-6 weeks to introduce knowledge into the community, connect members. Each location hosts a watch party to connect in person with their geographic peers. Speakers and participating locations can join via Zoom. Audience members can attend via livestreams on Youtube or Facebook. A food budget will be provided to each location based on the number of attendees and the operating budget of the Alliance.

2.2. Community Hosted Events

Each community has the flexibility to host their own Dev Alliance branded events provided:

  • They’re hosted on weeks that the Alliance is not having an event
  • The event is approved by the board
  • The event is advertised to the entire Developers Alliance

2.3. Bootcamps

Bootcamps will be events focused on learning a specific technology or skill over the course of 3-4 days. These will be put on in partnership with an organization looking to handle that training or as a result of community surveys to find out what skills the ADA would like to learn. They will be subsidized as much as possible to make it possible for independent developers to attend.

2.4. Hackathons

Hackathons will be 1-2 day events focused on applying programmer knowledge. Our primary focus will be on the outcome of what developers have learned as opposed to the result of what is built. In some cases it may make sense to change this paradigm, however, the focus should be on building to learn over the course of 1-2 days rather than “winning” the event. Hackathons can be sponsored by businesses looking to find developers with certain aptitudes, test technologies, or assess feasibility of their ideas.

2.4.1. Incentives for programmers to attend

  1. Subject matter relevant to all disciplines of programmers and other relevant education opportunities
  2. Finding work / jobs
  3. Learning
  4. Food
  5. Networking
  6. Incentives from employers to engage with the community

2.4.2. Incentives for employers to participate

  1. Educational opportunities to get programmers from beginning to intermediate/advanced (level 2 - level 4) and invest in the future.
  2. Centralized place for employers to look for developers for specific projects and employees.

3. Organizational Structure

We will adopt a board to handle turnover and add some redundancy for members to step back if need-be. The organizational structure will consist of a board staffed by ADA members and a Launch Alaska position. Launch Alaska will serve as the fiscal sponsor for the ADA. This includes:

  • Fundraising within the Alaskan Community and corporate outreach
  • Financial management (receiving sponsorships, paying expenses, accounting, etc)
  • Guidance based on needs communicated from Launch Alaska Stakeholders

3.1. Board Elections

June 2019 - June 2020

3.2. Board roles

  • Managing Director - Jeff Levin (through 2020)
  • Assistant Director​ - Vacant
  • Non-profit Chair / Treasurer - Isaac Vanderburg (Launch Alaska)
    • Oversees financial activities of the ADA including accounting, managing bank accounts, and overseeing expenses.
  • Anchorage Representative - Jeff Levin, Lincoln Larson (UAA)
    • Representative for Anchorage community, coordinates efforts for training, talks, and engaging with the community.
  • Juneau Representatives - Conroy Whitney
    • Representative for Juneau community, coordinates efforts for training, talks, and engaging with the community.
  • Fairbanks Representatives - Vincent Castro / Arsh Chauhan (UAF), Matt Perry(UAF)
    • Representative for Fairbanks community, coordinates efforts for training, talks, and engaging with the community.
  • Social Media Team (monthly newsletter, post events) - Kelly Larson
    • Handles social media posts related to events on Facebook, Eventbrite, Meetup, etc. Publishes monthly newsletter via mailchimp. Takes photos at events.
  • Sponsorship / Outreach team - Adam Link / Kelly Larson
    • Engages with businesses to promote awareness, participation, and sponsorship for the organization.
  • Event Coordination Team - ​ Need 2-
    • Works with each local chapter to ensure a location, food, and conferencing facilities are available for each event.

4. Core metrics - 2019

  • $12,000 in funding
  • Fully staffed board
  • 10 meetups
  • 1 hackathon
  • 1 bootcamp and investigate feasibility for another in January
  • Bootcamps scheduled and marketed
    • September - 13, 14, 15 - Bill Kennedy ( Intermediate -> Advanced, Golang)
    • January 2019 - 17, 18, 19 - TBD
    • May 2020 - 22, 23, 24 - TBD
    • October 2020 - 2, 3, 4 - TBD
  • Increase email list from 235 - 500
  • Send out 12 monthly emails detailing as many developer related events as we can find
  • Investigate feasibility of a 4th geographic location(Valdez, Kenai, Homer, Yukon, CA, etc)
  • Leadership succession plan for June, 2020
  • Establish gender parity and minority representation on board

5. Some future actions / events we might adopt

This list is malleable and will be talked about at board meetings, discussed with the community, and change with the direction of the group.

  • Training Path - treehouse curricula + mentor
  • Mentorship - CS club students + dev alliance members (github model for mentorship)
  • Outreach - booth at the fair, small group hackathon to make an exhibit and share at the fair
  • Economic focus - mentorship for people to make a career transition into development. Co-run agency / job placement to help transition new developers
  • Inverse code school - get paid to go through school, pay back with first gig
  • Projects list for entry level developers to take on with developers
  • Outreach to future young coders, collaborate with existing groups to help teach programming. Maker Lab / database of people to help out - Sarah Robinson
  • Centralized calendar for events and coding based organizations
  • Increased outreach on social media
  • Hackathons using public (government) data
  • Work with makerspace to do join workshops for hardware integration
  • Dev Alliance as two sided market place
    • Who are tech oriented people?
    • Who are tech oriented companies?

6. Conclusion

In order to overcome the lacking technology sector in Alaska, we must invest time and money into fostering a community organized around learning the craft of programming. This is the single biggest factor in the future success of Alaska's knowledge-based economy.

6.1. Endorsed by the founders of the Alaska Developers Alliance

  • Jeff Levin

  • Vincent Castro

  • Arsh Chauhan

  • Isaac Vanderburg

  • Conroy Whitney

  • Adam Link

  • Jeremy Mayfield

  • Lincoln Larson

  • Matt Perry

  • Kelly Larson

  • Erik Talvi