Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Cape Town Tech Communities

For the past 8 years I've been doing all sorts helping the Cape Town tech community in many ways. Lately, I've been using my experience and connections to help spur some life and energy into existing communities, getting them to do stuff. It can feel like talking to a brick wall at times, but the times when it results in new activity or reigniting an old group make it so worth it.


I often hear people say there's not enough going on in the local tech scene, and my response usually is that they're oh so wrong. I've come to realise just how fragmented the tech scene is. There are small groups that go off in a corner, and new people rarely find out about them. So here's a list of what I'm aware of going on in Cape Town. If you see a community you like, go join them. If you find a gap, don't bitch about it: form one! If you need help with that, I'm more than happy to help and I'm sure Jonathan Hitchcock will offer help too.

Architecture Meetup Facebook Group and Google Group
Cape Town iOS Meetup
NodeCPT (Google Group)
PloneSA
Cape Town Joomla! User Group
Drupal South Africa Community
#hackSTB (demos of what people have built in Stellenbosch)
UCT Developer Society (#breaktherules, #talkwithbeer, etc.; targeting students)
Maties Developers (Media Lab Monday talks, #HackSTB, etc.; targeting students)
codebridge (host networking events, talks, etc.)
Maties Computing Club
The SiliconCape events page and StartupDigest newsletter are good sources of events gathered from all over, with more focus on entrepreneurship and startups

I'm sure there are groups I've left out. Please tell me about them (in the comments or tweet me) and I'll add them. There are some semi-private groups I've purposefully left out: they're semi-private for good reason, so don't blabber about them.
No more bitching about the lack of activity in Cape Town, please?

Posted by Unknown at 5:29 PM

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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 24, 2012 at 5:49 PM

    One to add is the SA Drupal group, http://drupal.co.za/ The Cape Town user group has a meetup every month.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ShawnMay 20, 2012 at 3:13 PM

    marco excellent list !
    we are setting up techmeetups cape town shortly

    rgds
    shawn
    techmeetups.com
    http://meetup.com/techmeetups-cape-town

    ReplyDelete
  3. Eric EdelsteinJune 11, 2012 at 3:06 PM

    That's a fantastic list - thanks for putting together. And thanks for mentioning StartupDigest. You're right - there's a lot of stuff happening in Cape Town - we just need to get people hearing about the different events, and then hope the oncoming winter doesn't deter them from getting out and about! :) E

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