May 15, 2017
by Sarah Morris in News, Projects
Located in the heart of downtown Windsor at 255 Ouellette, Hackforge is a registered non-profit focused in technology. A member-driven organization, we host events and programming for beginners, professionals, and hobbyists. Hackforge operates as an event space, community workshop, and co-working space.
From now until May 27th, we’re hosting a small fundraiser. All proceeds raised will support our downtown space and programming to promote and teach about technology. We want to keep the majority of our events free and open to the public but we need your help.
We have brand new stickers, 3D printed keychains, t-shirts, and memberships to thank you for your donations. Pick up your swag at Hackforge’s Fifth Anniversary Party on May 27th or later on at our space!
April 28, 2017
by Sarah Morris in News
.NET Standard & How Typos in Tables Helped Lead to Computers
Tuesday, May 2: 6:30 PM
“.NET Standard” by Derek Comartin
Creating class libraries? Learn about what the .NET Standard is and how it solves the code sharing problem for .NET developers. Ability to share code across all platforms by bringing all the APIs that you expect and love across the environments that you need: desktop applications, mobile apps & games, and cloud services.
“How Typos in Tables Helped Lead to Computers” by John Haldeman
In this talk we’ll put away our computers and learn about how people used to multiply large numbers together. We’ll then explore the problems with those methods and how it drove Charles Babbage, one of the fathers of modern computing, to develop his difference engine and other machines.
Thank you to Microsoft for providing Domino’s Pizza at this event.
Meetup Event
Open Coding Night
Wednesday, May 10: 7:00 – 9:00 PM
Have a project you’re working on? Need to bounce ideas off other programmers? Want to try out a tutorial for new programming language? From beginners to pros, Open Coding Night is designated time for you to hone your craft. Bring your laptop and get coding!
Facebook / Meetup
Board Game Night
Friday, May 12: 7:00 – 10:00 PM
Join us for a night of board games and card games from 7-10PM. If you’re new to board games, we encourage you to come by as we will have trusty Hackforgers there to help get you started. Bring your favourite game (that can be played in less than four hours)!
Facebook / Meetup
Industrial Automation Club
Monday, May 15: 7:00 PM
Windsor’s biggest tech sector has a home at Hackforge! Come out to the inaugural meet of the Industrial Automation club and help set the direction. Whether wrangling PLCs and panels is your day job, or you’re just curious about how we make the machines that make the machines, this is the event for you.
Facebook / Meetup
Repair the World: Games and Community Energy Plan
Tuesday, May 16th: 7:00 PM
At this meeting of Repair the World, we’re going to share what’s we’ve learned about Windsor’s Community Energy Plan. Then we’re going to explore the collective action potential of games. We’re going to talk about past games such as ‘World Without Oil’ and “Future Coast” that invited players to imagine our future and then play with it. We’ll then do our own future-casting as we look at a game from a Hackforge member that’s currently under development.
Facebook / Meetup
Project Management Meetup: PMBOK & Prince II
Wednesday, May 17: 7:00 PM
Join us for a high level talk on PMBOK & PRINCE II, two popular project management methodologies and how they can work for you. We’re pleased to be joined by Elana Freeman, a Senior Project Manager at Thyssenkrupp Materials NA.
This group is for all professionals from any industry, and business owners to come together and exchange ideas and good practices in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.
Facebook / Meetup
3D Printing Club: Intro to 3D Modelling Software
Saturday, May 20: 1:00 – 3:00 PM
Come to Hackforge for a 3D printer showcase and an intro to 3D modelling software. Hackforge members will demonstrate their 3D printers and introduce three popular design programs: OnShape, Fusion 360, and FreeCAD. A great opportunity to learn where to begin in the wide world of 3D printing. We will investigate these kits and design programs further at the next meetup, so go ahead and bring your laptop if you would like to follow along.
Facebook / Meetup
Hackforge Open House
Wednesday, May 24: 7:00 PM
What is Hackforge??
Come learn what Hackforge about Hackforge’s space, events, membership, and community. Drop in to check out our space, see some cool Hackforge projects, and meet our Member Reps.
Facebook / Meetup
Hackforge Anniversary Party
Saturday, May 27: 1:00 PM
Hackforge was dreamt up in 2010 and became a registered non-profit in 2012. Let’s celebrate these milestones together. Details and surprises to come!
Facebook / Meetup
The Great Canadian Game Project May Meetup
Sunday, May 28: 1:00 – 4:00 PM
The game jam is on from February 1 to July 1! Participants have 150 days to conceive and create a game that is proudly Canadian!
Drop by the monthly meetup to discuss your ideas, ask questions, watch tutorials from mentors to help you get started, find existing projects to join, see progress of other developers and more!
More information to be updated at http://canada150game.ca/
Facebook / Meetup
Border City Data: A Gentle introduction to ETL
Monday, May 29th: 7:00 PM
ETL (“Extract, Transform, and Load”) is the commonly used name for the process of cleansing, moving and normalizing data for analysis. Join us for a beginner-friendly introduction to the tasks and tools involved in this process of adding value to data.
Facebook / Meetup
Book Club: Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (1992) pt. 2
Tuesday, May 30th: 7:00 PM
“In this dark and sinister age, America only has four things going for it: Movies, Music, Microcode (hacking), and High Speed Pizza Delivery.” We’re finishing Snow Crash! Join us for discussion on the end of this cyberpunk classic.
Facebook / Meetup
June Bookclub Pick: Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26114433-infomocracy
Software Guild: Zombie Encryption
Wednesday, May 31: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
It’s the night of the living dead encryption talks at Hackforge. This session (which was cancelled in March – sorry) is back from the dead and hungry for the brains of fellow developers who need to keep secrets. Join John Haldeman and Randy Topliffe to gain an understanding of HTTPS and get some practical advice on how to encrypt your own websites with Let’s Encrypt. Please note that these talks have nothing to do with Zombies but we hope the clever marketing ploy works.
Facebook / Meetup
April 3, 2017
by Sarah Morris in Events, News, Tech Talk, Windsor Essex Open Data
Board Game Night
Wednesday, April 5: 7:00 – 10:00 PM
Join us for a night of board games and card games from 7-10PM. If you’re new to board games, we encourage you to come by as we will have trusty Hackforgers there to help get you started. Bring your favourite game (that can be played in less than four hours)!
Facebook Event
3D Printer Show and Tell
Saturday, April 8: 1:00 PM
Are you interested in building a 3D printer? Please join us for an informal and beginner friendly meet and greet. Attendees will share photos and stories about 3D printers that they have built, want to build or are currently building. Feel free to bring your own photos and stories! We look forward to planning future events for 3D printer builders and want to gauge interest.
Facebook Event
Open Coding Night
Monday, April 10: 7:00 – 9:00PM
Have a project you’re working on? Need to bounce ideas off other programmers? Want to try out a tutorial for new programming language? From beginners to pros, Open Coding Night is designated time for you to hone your craft. Bring your laptop and get coding!
Facebook Events
FastFingers Commodore 64 Demo
Wednesday, April 12: 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Dan Laskowski demonstrates his 1984 lead synth software/ hardware for the C64 and Mattel Intellivision Piano Keyboard 27 years later! It is called Fastfingers.
Facebook Event
Repair the World! Climate Change & Technology
Tuesday, April 18: 7:00 PM
Repair the World is a monthly meet-up of those who want to learn more about the technologies and policies we can employ in Windsor-Essex to lead us towards a carbon-neutral future and to help our community cope with the effects of global warming. For our first meeting we are going to use Bret Victor’s What can a technologist do about climate change as our starting point.
Facebook Event
Project Management MeetUp
Wednesday, April 19: 7:00PM RESCHEDULED TO MAY
This group is for all professionals from any industry, and business owners to come together and exchange ideas and good practices in Project Management, Agile Product Development and Process Improvement, in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.
Topic TBA
Facebook Event
Intro to Javascript
Saturday, April 22: 1:00 – 3:00 PM
$15 General / $10 Student / FREE for Hackforge Members
Want to learn to code? JavaScript is a practical, easy to learn language.
This two hour class will show you the basics of JavaScript and get you writing some code.
Bring your laptop and let’s get coding! This class is designed for beginners.
All proceeds from this event go to support Hackforge’s community programming and physical space.
Sign up here!
The Great Canadian Game Project April Meetup
Sunday, April 23: 1:00 – 4:00 PM
The game jam is on from February 1 to July 1! Participants have 150 days to conceive and create a game that is proudly Canadian!
Drop by the monthly meetup to discuss your ideas, ask questions, watch tutorials from mentors to help you get started, find existing projects to join, see progress of other developers and more!
More information to be updated at http://canada150game.ca/
Facebook Event
Border City Data: Using City of Windsor Open Data
Monday, April 24: 7:00PM
Border City Data welcomes Bob Price, Technical Support Analyst at City of Windsor to talk about the City of Windsor’s open data. We will then give a talk about the practical uses for businesses and not-for-profits. Beginner friendly!
Facebook
Book Club: Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (1992)
Tuesday, April 25: 7:00 PM
When a virulent computer virus (or is it a drug? or a religion?) called Snow Crash gets loose and somehow starts infecting humans, Hiro teams up with a sassy skateboard messenger to save both the real world and cyberspace.
Join us for a casual conversation on Neal Stephenson’s 1992 cyberpunk classic ‘Snow Crash’.
Facebook Event
Software Guild
Wednesday, April 26: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Add some new tools to your testing toolbelt with this beginner friendly introduction to behavior driven development and the Gherkin scripting language. This talk provides an overview of how BDD connects user goals to human readable test scenarios. It also demonstrates how BDD can simplify test maintainance effort when requirements change frequently. The examples will feature C# and .Net but the concepts can be applied to any language.
This talk will be followed by Lightening Talks. Got something to share? Bring along a short (5 mins or less) talk and sign up.
Facebook Event
March 27, 2017
by Sarah Morris in Computer Girls, Ontario Trillium Foundation
Thursday, March 30th, Hackforge welcomes TechTown Detroit Diversity and Inclusion Entrepreneur-In-Residence, Marlin Williams to speak and participate in How To Build a Better Tech Community. This free evening talk and panel discussion starts at 7:00PM at Hackforge (255 Ouellette) and will discuss practical steps companies and teams can make to improve diversity and inclusion.
Marlin Williams has over 20 years experience as a Global Diversity and Inclusion Officer for two Fortune 500 Organizations, professional speaker, STEM Advocate, and media contributor. She will be speaking on her experiences, building diverse teams and creating environments where all people feel included.
The panel discussion will feature Williams; Elana Freeman, a project manager for Thyssenkrupp; Lori Dunford, a local computer programmer, and Sarah Mushtaq, an MBA candidate at the Odette School of Business. Moderated by Hackforge Managing Director, Sarah Morris, the panel will focus on practical measures and policies that can improve the working situation for a diversity of people in tech.
This is the final event under the Computer Girls initiative, in partnership with Women’s Enterprise Skills Training INC. (WEST), funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Join us after the panel discussion for a small reception for the program.
Details of event:
How to Build a Better Tech Community
Date of event: Thursday, March 30th: 7:00 – 8:30PM
Location: Hackforge (255 Ouellette, Windsor ON)
Cost: Free
Register Here // Facebook Event
March 14, 2017
by Sarah Morris in News
Today my term as President of Windsor Hackforge comes to a close. It’s been almost five years since a lunch conversation with Mita Williams and Marc Pillon turned into a proposal that got the Hackforge ball rolling. Even earlier than that, back in 2010, Aaron Mavrinac dreamed of a “Windsor Hackerspace” at an un-conference held by Mita.We started with four walls inside the Windsor Public Library, a couple of tables and chairs, and a few volunteers. Since then we’ve grown, and learned and shared our learning with the community.
At our first AGM, we were proud that we had pulled off two hackathons, a dozen tech talks and a couple of technical projects. This past year we held well over one hundred events.
A few years ago, every contributor to this group could easily be named in a short report. Today Hackforge has 54 core members, and dozens more who take part in our events. We have interest groups spanning different technical disciplines and subfields with more popping up all the time.
When we started out, we were a few people who dreamed of a real community of tech people in Windsor. Today, that dream has been realized. All of us together have built something useful out of nothing and that’s not something that happens every day.
I’d like to thank the board of directors, past and present:
Jason Pomerleau
Marc Pilon
Gemma Grey-Hall
Anjana Jacobs
Art Rhyno
Phil Aylesworth
Mita Williams
Aaron Mavrinac
Carol Easton
AmberJoy Kouvalis
Katie Facceccia
Nour Hachem
And those who have served as member reps:
Chris Deschamps
Anthony Garreffa
Will Comartin
Jeff Szusz
Michal Janyst
Our landlord, benefactor and key community supporter Mark Boscariol. Our godparents in the non-profit community, Becky Parent and Joyce Zuk who helped get this thing off the ground.
There are a couple of important volunteers who must be mentioned. Paul Anderson who was a constant presence in Hackforge’s early days. Paul believed in us and helped breathe life into this group. Thanks to Paul. Terry McLinden’s wisdom and generosity with his time must be mentioned. We miss you, Terry.
Our staff who have been consistently great to work with – Simon Barno, Shawn Daichendt, Aisling Douglas, Dylan Herbert, Derek Richard and of course, Sarah Morris, the straw that stirs the Hackforge drink.
To all of our members, volunteers and community partners:
Thank you.
Hackforge has just completed a strategic plan and we have new mission statement:
HACKFORGE IS TECHNOLOGY ENTHUSIASTS GROWING THE TECH CAPABILITIES OF OUR REGION BY CREATING CONNECTIONS AND LEARNING TOGETHER.
It’s time to use this plan to develop new programming and make Hackforge bigger and more effective than it ever has been before.
It’s also time for new leadership. I’m looking forward to finding out what Katie Facceccia has to bring to the table as the President of the board.
