BetaKit’s West Coast Editor John Gray often tells me that people do things a little differently on the “best coast.” One emerging trend I’ve noticed amongst the Vancouver tech community is a growing ‘pay it forward’ culture.
The spirit of helping others shows itself in varying ways, from small fun events for a good cause, like @TechPongYVR and Tech’s Got Talent, to larger campaigns looking to eliminate the immediate stigma of depression or future pains of digital illiteracy. On the West Coast, it’s not just about the event, it’s about what can happen when the tech community comes together.
Over 46,000 raised for #yvr youth charities at #TGT2015!!! Amazing! #fundraising #yvrtech
— Rachel Scott (@racheljoscott) June 25, 2015
Next week, the Vancouver-based Dun & Bradstreet Cloud Innovation Center is hosting a keynote and Q&A session with Adrian Cockcroft, the former Netflix Chief Architect of Cloud Services and current technical fellow for VC firm Battery Ventures. “The goal is to bring together Vancouver’s brightest minds to share in our passion for innovation and learn from one of the leading thinkers in cloud technology,” Mark Cunningham, the founder and President of Dun & Bradstreet Cloud Innovation Center, told BetaKit.
But in typical West Coast fashion, the event is an opportunity to do more. A portion of the ticket proceeds for the Cockcroft Q&A will be donated to Girls Learning Code a national non-profit that offers coding workshops, camps and programs for girls between the ages of six and 17. I asked Cunningham why it was important to add a charitable component to such an intimate event.
“One of our core values as a team is to be ‘Inherently Generous’,” he said. “We believe that success comes by helping others succeed, and we bake that philosophy into everything we do at the Cloud Innovation Center. Thought leadership and education in our community is just one of the ways in which we try to be inherently generous.”
“We also chose to support Girls Learning Code for this event as encouraging greater diversity in tech is something my team and I are passionate about, as well as being essential to continued innovation in our industry,” Cunningham continued.
As media sponsor for the event, BetaKit is proud to support a community trying to do a little more.
