2012 Year in Review

Dear friends,

It’s been an incredible 2012 — our first full year as a community and organization — and it couldn’t have happened without you. We want to thank everyone that’s made this past year possible: our team of incredible and dedicated volunteers, our sponsors and donors, New York’s generous and welcoming tech community, and the many community groups and political leaders we’ve worked with.

We’ve continued our advocacy work to foster the Queens tech community, engaged with tech entrepreneurs and companies to organize the Queens Tech Meetup and grown it to over 1,000 members within 6 months, and started planning a pilot initiative to expand access to tech education.

Take a look at C4Q’s 2012 below. Thank you for helping us make this possible. We look forward to a more wonderful, eventful, and impactful 2013 with you.

Jukay, Dave, Ben, and the C4Q team

AT A GLANCE

HIGHLIGHTS & MILESTONES

From the simple idea that inspired Coalition for Queens, we’ve continued to grow, and we are continually inspired by the talented people and companies we meet. It’s been an eventful year: Dave and Ben joined as integral members of the team, we moved into new office space, received funding and sponsorship, and created initiatives with entrepreneurs and companies.

Check out some of the highlights and milestones from this past year.

GROWING AWARENESS

QUEENS TECH MEETUP

The Queens tech community is thriving and growing.

After encouragement from Charlie O’Donnell and other members of the NYC tech community, we started Queens Tech Meetup, a venue for techies and companies to share their products and meet innovative entrepreneurs. We’ve been thrilled and overwhelmed by the response, and have been extraordinarily fortunate to have met amazing entrepreneurs and tech companies this past year.

Many of our attendees and members are from outside the borough. We encourage everyone to come check out Queens!

A Quick Overview of Queens Tech Meetup

For more photos, please visit our facebook page

Membership Growth

ADVOCACY

Throughout 2012, we continued our advocacy work to increase awareness and support the needs of the growing tech community in Queens.

For example, we worked with Governor Cuomo’s New York City Regional Economic Development Council (NYCREDC) to incorporate Queens tech companies and the growing startup community into New York State’s long-term planning.

“Long Island City and Queens have a growing technology community and tech innovation hub.”

NYCREDC, 2012 Progress Report

Access to reliable high-speed broadband internet is a major challenge facing the tech industry, and we want to ensure that proper infrastructure is in place so that Queens entrepreneurs can focus on what they do best — building great products and companies. New York City launched ConnectNYC Fiber Challenge, an initiative to provide fiber build-out to businesses across the city. We encouraged members of our Queens Tech community to apply, and hosted New York City Economic Development Corporation representatives to present about fiber at Queens Tech Meetup 5.

EDUCATION

Education and training are vital components to a healthy tech ecosystem.

By expanding access to high-quality tech courses, we hope to grow the talent pool here in the borough and contribute to the tech workforce in NYC.

In 2012, we ran two workshops aimed at introducing professionals and students to tech entrepreneurship. The initial batch of classes consisted of “Web Programming for Non-Developers” taught by Malcom Ong, Co-founder of Skillshare, and “From Concept to Product: Intro to Adobe Illustrator” by our own Dave Yang.

With the generous support of NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn, we are launching an intensive course to programming in early 2013. Stay tuned!

SANDY RELIEF

Popup Coworking
In late October, Hurricane Sandy swept through New York City, destroying homes, businesses, and communities. Many tech entrepreneurs and companies in Queens were left without power, internet access, or a place to work following the storm. For two weeks, we opened a free popup coworking space in Long Island City. Over 15 people, including some from our neighboring boroughs, stopped by to recharge, work on their projects, and share some delicious coffee.

Rebuilding Queens
Rebuilding Queens is an initiative organized in partnership with the Queens Borough President’s Office to help those most affected by Hurricane Sandy by providing a central website with information and resources.

We put out a call for volunteers from the Queens and New York tech community to build a working prototype for the website. We were overwhelmed by the response; over 20 talented developers and designers from across the area came to help with the efforts.

Lovingly built by volunteers from the Queens and New York tech community

SHOUT OUTS

A special thanks to our amazing volunteers.

From prepping for Queens Tech Meetup to spending the weekend working together on community web projects, it’s our volunteers that make Coalition for Queens possible.

Mohamed Ali
Jeremey Berman
Shohini Bhattacharya
Matt Bishop
Isaac Botier
Jack Chen
Stacy Chen
Michael Chiang
Beckie Choi
Jane Chong
Grace Chung
Frank Denbow
Michael Depuy
Julian Dunn
Regina Fojas
Nathan Gao
Meghan Gill
Brian Gruber
Paul Gullas
Greg Gundersen

Diana Guo
Rohit Gupta
Albert Hwang
Nabill Idrisi
Jane Jang
Ronnel Jarin
Ann John
Derek Kan
Brian Kil
Dorsey Kim
Nancy Kim
Darren Kong
Heena Ko
Joanne Kong
Peter Lada
Esther Lee
Jenny Lee
Kamiu Lee
Adam Levine
Chih-Houng Lo

Stephanie Lung
Yifei Lu
Sean Madigan
Paul Mendez
Chika Ota
Guillermo Peralta
Nicole Pupillo
Dion Ridley
Samuel Sanchez
Briana Severson
Gary Sharma
Emil Skandul
Carl Smith
Audrey Tan
Sean Tom
Jennifer Vargas
Dan Vingo
Sinead White
Thomas Yang
Simon Yi

Thank you to the elected officials and leaders in our community

We look forward to working together in 2013.

Congressman Joseph Crowley
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney
Congresswoman Grace Meng
Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall

NYS Senator Michael Gianaris
NYS Senator Jose Peralta
NYS Senator Toby Stavisky

NYS Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan
NYS Assemblywoman Nily Rozic
NYS Assemblywoman Aravella Simatos
NYS Assemblyman Ed Braunstein
NYS Assemblyman Mike Simanowitz
NYS Assemblyman Francisco Moya

NYC Councilmember Leroy Comrie
NYC Councilmember Karen Koslowitz
NYC Councilmember Mark Weprin
NYC Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer
NYC Councilmember Julissa Ferreras
NYC Councilmember Peter Koo
NYC Councilmember Daniel Halloran
NYC Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr.
NYC Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley
NYC Councilmember James Sanders
NYC Councilmember Eric Ulrich
NYC Councilmember James Gennaro
NYC Councilmember Daniel Dromm
NYC Councilmember Ruben Wills

Queens Chamber of Commerce
Queens Economic Development Corporation

ADVISORS & MENTORS

We are grateful to have guidance from experts and leaders across many disciplines.

CONGRESSMAN JOSEPH CROWLEY
U.S. Representative, New York 7th District

DAWN BARBER
Co-founder of NY Tech Meetup

ALEX GARVIN
Professor of Urban Planning and Management at Yale University

AMOL SARVA
Founder of Virgin Mobile USA; founder of Peek; Angel Investor and founder of Cfund

CAROL CONSLATO
President, Queens Chamber of Commerce

SPONSORS & PARTNERS

Thank you to our sponsors whose support make our activities and events possible.

NYC COUNCIL FINANCIAL SUPPORTERS
Speaker Christine Quinn
Councilmember Leroy Comrie
Councilmember Karen Koslowitz
Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr.

QUEENS TECH MEETUP SPONSORS

GET INVOLVED

We have many exciting projects to look forward to in 2013.

We’re gearing up for the launch of our Education classes and an Open Source Conference this year. We’d love your help to grow the Queens Tech community, so share with your friends and get in touch!

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