Day: August 12, 2016

• What: TechBash 2016
• Where: Kalahari Resort, Pocono Manor, PA
• When: September 28-30, 2016
• How Much: Registration – $399; Rooms – From $159/night
• Why: For the Developer Community

Readers of my blog are probably aware of TechBash. I have been including links to announcements and blogged about it a few times. I wanted to take a step back from the marketing hype and talk about why we’re doing this.

The short answer is in the “Why” above: it’s for the community. The new Kalahari in the Poconos is uniquely situated. It is only a 2 hour drive from Philadelphia, northern New Jersey and New York City. It’s also within a reasonable driving distance from Baltimore, DC and Boston. That’s a huge developer population that has not has a community-organized conference of this scale available to them before.

Ohio and the surrounding areas have CodeMash every January. The upper-Midwest has That Conference, the Summer Camp for Geeks in WI. Both of these events are hosted at other Kalahari locations and stand as a shining example of what the community can build. Those of us organizing TechBash want to bring that same type of event to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic developer communities. We want to take what’s awesome about those conference and about Code Camps like the ones run by Philly .NET and build something amazing.

All of our founders are Microsoft MVPs or alumni of the MVP Program.

• Jason Gaylord
• Andy Schwam
• Alvin Ashcraft
• Devin Rader
• Jess Chadwick
• Brian Minisi

Many of our speakers are also MVPs.

• Chris Woodruff
• Glenn Block
• Iris Classon
• James Bender
• Jesse Liberty
• Jim Wooley
• Joseph Guadagno
• Ondrej Balas
• Oren Novotny
• Sam Basu
• Steve Michelotti
• Kevin Hazzard

MVPs receive the award each year by helping the developer community in their respective areas. That’s what we’re trying to do with TechBash. TechBash is not backed by a software company, publisher or other big business. The six developers who created the non-profit TechBash Foundation are bringing this event to life because there is no other affordable mid-week, multi-day event for the developer community in the region. We are doing this on our own time because we’re passionate about building this event for developers around NY and Philly.

Similar conferences in the region can end up costing you or your company over $1500 more for the registration and hotel. We have tried to price TechBash as low as possible while still delivering a first class experience. For small companies that want to send a team of developers, we are offering group discounts to help offset the cost. Contact groups@techbash.com for more information. Our discounted hotel rates at the Kalahari are only valid through August 29th, so register and book your room as soon as possible.

If you have any questions, you can contact me or reach out to info@techbash.com. Also, let’s start a dialog right here in the comments section. My posts are usually one-sided lists of links that I push out to my readers. This is a chance to have a dialog. What do you like about what we’re doing with TechBash? What are your concerns? Do you have the same concerns about other regional conferences like Code Mash, That Conference, and CodeStock? Where can we improve our message and our event?

Thanks for your time! I really hope that everyone who attends TechBash feels the excitement and inspiration that comes from building something together.