Last Thursday (4/7/2016) I spoke at the 2016 NYC CS Fair. Their number one goal is to encourage public high school students who study CS to stick with it, by showcasing all the great opportunities that await them should they pursue a career there. I talked about being a hacker, how to negotiate CS studies in higher education, the difference between CS and software engineering, and the importance of a good mentor.

A couple of weeks ago I did a great fireside chat with Matt Turck at Data Driven NYC. I’ve always found that the fireside chat is a format with a lot of potential to be boring, but Matt is a great interviewer, and interacting with him on stage definitely adds to the event. For example, when I was talking about the headline features of our 3.2 release, I omitted a significant pair – the BI connector and Compass – and he reminded me to talk about them.

For the past 6 months, I’ve been participating in the NYC Tech Talent Pipeline Advisory Board, a partnership between New York City and technology companies in New York. From the press release announcing this board’s formation: Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced 14 initial industry commitments to support the delivery of technology education, training, and job opportunities to thousands of New Yorkers as part of the Administration’s NYC Tech Talent Pipeline initiative.