First-ever White House Tech Meetup includes DC’s own

Today, 50 tech meetup organizers from around the country will be convening at the White House for opening talks, discussion sessions and unconferences in the company of U.S. CTO Megan Smith.
Among them is DJ Saul, an organizer of the DC Tech Meetup, the monthly get-together that celebrates the local industry’s strides. He got picked because of the event’s location and his ties to Meetup, he said.
The event will offer the opportunity to “take a quick look of what’s interesting, what’s hot and what’s relevant,” he added; while, of course, brushing shoulders with “so many supper-connectors.” Tech meetups around the country “all have their different flavors,” he added.
For the government, it’s a statement on the value of the tech industry nationwide — a continuation of the Obama administration’s TechHire initiative announced earlier this year, which redirects $100 million from company fees for the H-1B visa program into partnerships to hire and train low-skilled workers in software development jobs.
“Efforts like TechHire and the White House Tech Meetup are focused on growing the ecosystem of talented Americans participating in our local tech communities by actively reaching out to those who may not initially think that product management, learning to code, mobile app user interface design, or a web Meetup group is for them,” Smith, America’s CTO, wrote in a joint blog post with Jerry Abramson, the deputy assistant to the President.
Saul also put together several networking events around the White House affair. On Thursday, local technologists could meet with some of the attendees around drinks at the Sauf Haus Bier Hall. After the daylong tech meetup, he will also be inviting the congregation to iStrategyLabs to a an afterparty.
For a full list of Meetup groups represented, check out the company’s post.