We Start Things in Upstate NY and it’s Amazing
By: Kseniya Lifanova
Tags: Tech, Syracuse, Women In Tech, Upstate New York, Software Development

At Upstate Interactive, our mission is to position ourselves as a strategic partner alongside Upstate organizations to help them prosper and grow through digital means. In turn, we hope that our local community benefits as these organizations grow and need to hire on more staff.

Insert technical flow diagram here

It’s the circle of life!

In today’s day and age, organizations of all types and sizes are beginning to realize that they will not survive without having a digital presence. As this notion sinks in, there will be a need for technical talent to fill the roles of strategic partners and service providers. We wish we could do it all, but we are only four people (so far).

One of the ways in which we feed into the tech ecosystem is by developing and nurturing local tech talent. We want Syracuse, Albany, Rochester, Buffalo, and other Upstate NY based firms to look within the region for their technical needs rather than outsourcing to other states or countries. We must provide access to ample opportunities for our community to learn how to code and we need to inspire and engage the developers we currently have in the area. That way, they won’t cross over to the dark side and leave us for San Francisco or New York City.

We, at Upstate Interactive, have been committed to this mission, even before we joined forces. We have started things in Upstate NY, and as the title suggests, it has been amazing. Let me break it down for you:

Doug Crescenzi founded Hack Upstate, a weekend long hackathon that happens twice a year. This provides the opportunity for developers from all around Upstate NY to come together and work on different projects. We love to see the ideas that have come out of these events, and the connections that are made. Hack Upstate has been around for 4 years, and it keeps growing every year. It has become a staple in our tech community and we are always looking forward to it.

Peter Smith convenes a weekly coding club where developers get together to work on coding challenges. From beginners to advanced developers, the group learns how to work on a team to solve a difficult challenge.

Last year, Zoe Koulouris and I cofounded Women in Coding as a way to provide more opportunities for women and others in our community to learn how to code. This came out of a lack of resources in the area at the time we were looking.

Driving out to Rochester one snowy December evening for a Girl Develop It coding class, we decided to take matters into our own hands and start offering classes in Syracuse. We held a few meetings to confirm there was interest, and we’ve been hosting classes and social events since March 2016. We have a core group of community members who attend our events and classes and we continue to work hard to grow this group.

We start things in Upstate NY and it’s amazing.

As I always hear, there is a need for developers in the area. Wouldn’t it be great if we could hire within our city rather than outsourcing these jobs to remote workers from around the country? We are committed to bridging this gap. As we ourselves grow as a company, we hope to employ developers from within Syracuse and the rest of Upstate NY.

As someone who jumped careers, I can say that programming is an exciting and rewarding field. If you are interested in learning how to code or want to get involved in any of our ventures, please reach out to us:

www.upstateinteractive.io

www.womenincoding.com

www.hackupstate.com

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If we all work together, we can hopefully make Upstate NY the booming tech region that San Francisco is (with affordable rent prices).

Thanks for reading!