In years past, we held periodic Expert Series for our community to share our collective knowledge and expertise over a lunch hour. It was great to hear and learn about what our members did for work, their hobbies and hustles, and enjoyment. This year, we are exited to bring the series back with an updated…
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Thanks to the feedback we got, we are rescheduling the coLearning classes so more people have time to sign up. A lot of you had a difficult time getting approval during the holiday season or had to wait for 2014 educational budgets to be available before signing up. We are working w/our facilitators and will…
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This year over 100 volunteers helped 17 non-profits develop new websites, establish databases, improve marketing initiatives, and more, through Grand Rapids Give Camp. The annual event connects local-area non-profits to the community. Technology professionals donate their time to providing much-needed technology assistance to the non-profits in the form of new websites, databases, etc. This year,…
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The local technology community of Grand Rapids hosted this year’s Midwest UX. The excitement from the local community was outstanding and The Factory was lucky enough to be a part of the event. Attendees of this year’s event had the option of participating in an excursion to The Factory. The excursion gave the attendees an…
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Derek Lolli, (@deriklolli), a Factory member, just had an app accepted into the Apple App Store. Check it out. Aaron Schaap, (@schaapy), along with company Zipments, (@zipments), whose team are members at The Factory, were profiled in a recent issue of Solace magazine. Several of The Factory’s members helped out with the GRGiveCamp (@grgivecamp) orientation…
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One of the many great experiences of the coLearning program is the site visits that coLearners get to make to local businesses. These visits are opportunities for the the students to discover more about the important processes and approaches that local software development and design companies are using in their own environment. The latest studio…
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The Factory is 4 years old. We feel old. Jason Swett, @JasonSwett, Factory member, is embarking on “Operation Get Profitable” for his startup. Read more J. Tower, @jtowermi, Factory member, was on the WGVU Morning Show with Shelley Irwin, talking about the upcoming GRGiveCamp event. Elevator Up, @elevatorup, helped launch an iOS app this week.…
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We’re Growing… Homes of Hope is building a living building in Grand Rapids for a young family that has devoted their lives to helping the community. Brent Fisher, a Factory member, is on the board. There’s one more ticket left for The Factory Tour excursion at Midwest UX. One of The Factory members, John Rumery,…
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For a long time, The Factory has considered adding a blog to our website. However, we knew that we did not want just another empty blog that goes stale after a couple of months (the Internet has enough of those). However, as our family at The Factory has grown, the interesting activities that are going…
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We’re very happy to share that The Factory has reached its highest total membership ever! We’ve got 70+ members now and receive >10 visitors a day checking out the space. In addition, we’ve got many groups using our conferences room for workshops, seminars and meetings. CoLearning is happening two nights a week. We’ve got many…
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The first coLearning Microsoft .Net course is underway and almost to the half-way point. CoLearning’s first course covering the Microsoft .Net platform was a popular addition to the coLearning’s course offerings. Instructor J. Tower is leading a full class of developers in a weekly session covering a variety of .Net topics including object-oriented programming, database-interaction…
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