Building a Tech Community in the East from (almost) Nothing
summary
Five volunteers turn a few pub meetups into Norfolk developers and SIG Norwich, then Nor Devcon, growing to about 400 attendees and a £20,000 turnover that yields roughly £7,000 surplus. An annual 54-hour startup event spawns 2–3 new companies each year. Monthly technical meetups sell out workshops (example: neo4j half-day workshop), a MongoDB user group forms, and a schools day with Microsoft builds self‑balancing robots. All income is reinvested, speakers receive expenses only, and growth depends on sponsorship and persistent volunteers.
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chapters (16)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:12Norwich
- 2:28Extreme Tuesday Club
- 3:09Agile East Anglia
- 6:32Sink Norwich
- 8:59ACCU Norwich
- 11:21MongoDB Meetup Group
- 12:02Norfolk Developers
- 16:56Norfolk Devcon
- 17:54How many people
- 20:59Summary
- 22:33Norwich Groups
- 23:26Getting people to come along
- 25:54How do you get speakers
- 28:10How often do you meet
- 30:14How do you consolidate meetups
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