I know I love Boston but Burlington is my home.

Ironic? Hypocritical? Confusing? I know. A day after professing my love and commitment to Boston I follow up with a post on Burlington. Burlington is where I grew-up and it's where I hope to return someday but not yet. While becoming a member of the community here I'm also trying to help influence the tech community in Burlington. Our vision, I can say our for this project, is that Burlington can become a hub for tech just like Boulder. Brad Feld wrote the book on how to accomplish this feat but we're all about reinventing the wheel. My ultimate goal is to help build up Burlington so that when I return it's better than I last left it.

Our project is called the Burlington Code Factory and it's part of the Vermont Venture Foundry (I know...not very original). This is our first step in building the community and here is the email we're sending to VT's current tech leaders:

First let me thank you for your leadership and interest in advancing the creative economy in VT. Now let me get you to hear what a group of us are doing to take Burlington from what it is and to transform it into what it could be. 

We all know there is much work to be done in improving the technology community and efforts are underway to attract more developers to VT. We have the natural resources and access to big markets but something is missing to attract and retain great talent. Many place blame on the academic institutions, some to the lack of funding, while we choose to point the fingers at ourselves. No one is going to snap their fingers and instantly attract people who think in binary. 

We need to do a better job of fostering new ideas, supporting budding entrepreneurs, and growing from 2 big private tech companies to dozens of thriving small-mid size startups. We need the world to know that you can come to Burlington and raise a seed round, A round, and B round w/o having to relocate to SV, Boston, or NY. We need to have more meetups, more hackathons, and more social settings if the world is going to sense a community here. We need to bring what happens in the shadows into the public so that the tech community understands VT is a hub as strong Boulder. 

In order to get there we must start somewhere. Today we are launching the Burlington Code Factory for New England based CS undergrads. Interns will receive a competitive stipend to live in Burlington and join several startup projects which already have prototypes (frameworks) and vetted business models. Each intern will have the opportunity to become a co-founder and ultimately receive equity in the project. This effort is our first step in getting those couple dozen startups. If we can change the misconception that you have to go to Boston or NYC or SV with the younger generation older developers will follow. As the pool of young talent grows so will the community. 

Help support this effort! Share the attached promotional materials and link with your colleagues, universities, and prospective coders. Offer to be mentors, advisers, backers, etc. 

Looking forward to fielding your questions, comments, support. 

All the best,

The Team at Vermont Venture Foundry

If you know of any aspiring coders who wants to build something cool this summer share the following link with them:

http://venture-foundry.com 

Know of any similar projects, internships, etc? Want to get involved? Comment below!