Blake Burris

It seems like just yesterday that we were in the final stretch of planning the second Cleanweb Hackathon in New York. It was a great event that brought people together from the Cleantech community along with investors, city officials, entrepreneurs and a spattering of students. It exceeded my expectations and has led to follow up discussions and spurred the city’s own hackathon, Reinvent Green.

During the two weeks following NYC, I had some great follow up chats with people interested in doing hackathons all over (Tel Aviv, Houston, Paris, L.A., Singapore, Berlin, and Philadelphia). Wow, this thing has legs I thought.

Luckily, Sunil Paul and Nick Allen (of Spring Ventures) shared my enthusiasm for doing something beyond the first two events that would catalyze local leaders who could in turn continue the momentum. While we could have just let Cleanweb spread organically, my opinion was that Cleanweb, as an evolutionary mantra for continued innovation, deserved some focused execution. If we could identify leaders interested in spreading the meme, real community could be formed for create some major impact and disruptive new companies. We quickly agreed on a plan and they agreed to invest funds and to help raise sponsors interest in a Cleanweb 10-city tour.

So, after several months of planning, it’s time to kick off the first spate of hackathons:

• Boston, May 4-6
• Boulder, May 17-20
• Santa Clara, May 22-24 (in conjunction with Connectivity Week)
• Oakland*, June 8-11
• Paris*, June 17-21 (in conjunction with Futur en Seine)

I hope you can join us at one of these if you’re nearby or can get there. If you’re one of those wondering “when cleanweb is coming to my city,” consider recruiting some compatriots who would make good organizers and complete the facilitator application to get the ball rolling.

It might go without saying, but producing a great event for 150-200 people is a big commitment. It takes about 90-days  of planning, a great  team, raising $10-20K, securing sponsors, and then making sure you do everything in your power to get people to bring their creative guns on game day.

Join the #Cleanweb conversation on Twitter or for some serious dev chat: ##Cleanweb on irc.freenode.net