Editor’s Note: After recently learning about the upcoming Omaha Co-Founders Meetup, I reached out to the meetup’s organizer, Miles Matthais, and asked if he’d author a guest post to introduce it and tell the backstory of why he started it. What I received, unexpectedly, is a post that not only introduces the meetup, but it tells a story that’s very relevant to a recent post of ours by regular guest contributor Tom Chapman: “Innovation Chamber: Increasing the region’s population through college students“.
I encourage you to read Mile’s story below, and if you’re free next Wednesday and you think the Co-Founders Meetup is a fit for you, come on out to The Foundation.
– Danny Schreiber, Managing Editor
Thanks to our sponsor
The following is a guest post by Miles Matthais, a recent computer science and information assurance graduate of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Miles can be found on Twitter, @miles_matthais, and reached by email at miles.matthias@gmail.com. (Photo from meetup.com)
Screenshot from meetup.com
Wow – thank you Danny for this opportunity. I’m going to give some background on how this group came to be, but if you just want the five-line blurb on the details of the event, scroll to the bottom and avoid my droning.
I recently graduated from University of Nebraska-Omaha with one degree in computer science and another degree in information assurance. During my time there I was heavily involved in the student population at the Peter Kiewit Institute (PKI). PKI’s scholars all receive priority (free if they’re a Scott Scholar) living at the privately-ran dorms across the street at Scott Campus. As a resident assistant, and then as the resident director, my job was to get to know the people of the campus and put on constructive and exciting events that they would enjoy. (I was also responsible for responding for any situation, day or night, which made for sleepless nights and some awesome stories, but that is a different post.) Getting to know these students was pretty easy for me because I myself was a scholar and lived at Scott Campus my entire four year college career (including the two years I was on staff there).
As I progressed through my programs and discovered more and more about myself and what I wanted to do with my life, I became turned on to the idea of starting my own company, working with a small team of people, and having the creative freedom to build what I want. I started looking around Omaha for ways I could learn more about this career option, meet like-minded people, and just – get started. As a student, I was disappointed.
I did find Silicon Prairie News, which continues to be one of my daily visit sites for obvious reasons, but their speciality is in covering startups, not making them. Omaha just doesn’t seem to have the groundswell of people and organizers to create a vibrant community that creates awesome tech. Sure, there are a few great success stories (Phenomblue, MindMixer, etc), but nothing on the community-wide scale like in bigger cities. Do we just not have the talent? I don’t think that’s it at all.
I’ve been talking with the few like-minded startup people I have found in Omaha about why they think that is. One of the themes I’ve heard is a lack of a young student population to create new things and to provide a continuous flow of people involved.
I definitely agree. After being disappointed by the lack of bigger movements, I looked to my friends (tech scholar students) at Scott Campus and asked them about startups. Many of them had no clue what a startup was, what the possibilities were, and when it came to career decisions – for them it was UP vs ConAgra.
My vision for Omaha, more specifically Scott Campus and PKI, is that they become known as the best and only place in the Midwest to go to college if you want to have the real opportunity to spread your wings, be creative, and make cool new things with the support of an entire city behind you. Teachers at PKI and entrepreneurs from the community passing on critical knowledge, encouraging students to constantly question, innovate, and try new things, while reminding them that the steady paycheck of the corporate world will always be there when they want it, but the opportunity to throw care to the breeze and just go for it –pursue any passion – is a golden window that the human spirit cannot afford to let slip (especially when you’re living and eating like a king for free at Scott Campus – come on people!).
It is in this spirit that I am very happy to announce the Omaha Co-Founders Meetup. Our first meetup is to gain support and get the word out about our cause. To help us with that, Hacks/Hackers, an awesome journalism/tech group in Omaha, is having a joint meetup with us to gain more exposure.
- Omaha Co-Founders Meetup: Meet, Mingle, and Innovate
- Wednesday, August 3, 6:30 pm
- The Foundation (The Founder’s Club Lounge)
- 1407 Harney Street, Omaha, Neb.
Also, since our main goal is to push startups to the students at Scott Campus and PKI, our next Meetup will be in collaboration with the PKI administration at PKI when the school year starts in August! Come to our first meetup to show your support, join the group on Meetup.com, and stay tuned for details on our next meetup soon!
Lastly, have you seen the new buildings at Scott Campus? They will double in size with the fall 2011 opening of Scott Court and will have a booming 1,000+ residents! Swing by 67th & Pine (Aksarben Village area) to check it out!
