Reposting "Calling All Greek App Makers"

Published: 05 Aug 2013

Tomorrow it is exactly one year ago we announced the start of the Appsterdam Greece.

A lot has happened since then and more is coming.

To mark our first year we are reposting the original blog post which started it all.

A big thanks to all who supported us by making introductions with Greek communities, helping out and showing up.

And if you like to help out, get involved or have any questions, let us know via Twitter, GitHub or Facebook.

Calling All Greek App Makers

August 6th, 2012

The coming weeks I will be in Greece. Besides enjoying the sun and great food I want to help setup a Greek Appsterdam Embassy in Athens, where we will be the last week of August.

In the week we are there, we will help you get connected with the Appsterdam community, the local university and businesses. We will give you tips and tricks on how to run a volunteer-based organization, and have a look at which events would work well in Greece and how to get them started.

On Wednesday, the 29th of August, we will have a Meeten and Drinken to officially launch the Embassy. If all goes well, we will open a live connection with the Amsterdam Meeten en Drinken so we can meet each other in most direct way, considering the distance.

In the days leading up to this I will be at your full disposal to help—but you don’t have to wait for us to appear. Start now.

Meeten en Drinken

Appsterdam is a community and communities are made of people.

Although the internet allows us to connect and stay connected, there is no substitute for meeting each other in person.

We organize many events where people can come together and share thoughts, but none are as powerful as our weekly Meeten en Drinken.

It is important to have face time with your peers. Time to talk and share thoughts without a set agenda. This is how innovation gets stimulated and alliances get formed.

Meeten en Drinken is every Wednesday at 19:00, and is always at the same bar (or taverna). It would great if the first Meeten en Drinken of the Greek Embassy will take place on 22th of August or before.

You pick the place and start finding people who want to join. Let us know and we will help spread the word.

You will be amazed how powerful a room full of people with skills and ideas can be.

Appsterdam in the Sun

The Greek Embassy should be a hub for local talent—the place to be if you want to connect with your peers or find mentoring to become an App Maker—making the community visible and addressable.

One of the powerful things we provide in Amsterdam is an infrastructure allowing people to land in the city and have like-minded friends from the first day. People who will show them around, help them get setup, join them for dinner and drinks.

The Embassy should be a hub for international App Makers who would like to spend some time in a beautiful, sunny country with great food and people—and good wifi.

It should be a place where App Makers from all over the world come to spend some time working on their Apps, or recover from launching their products, while enjoying the pleasures of Greece. And while they are here, you get to drain all the knowledge from their brains.

They can help you get connected with clients abroad, share their network and knowledge—and they just might return the favor when you visit their home towns.

In other words, Appsterdam in the sun.

Who We Are Looking For

We are looking for App Makers and people who want to become or work with App Makers.

This means developers, designers, marketeers, project managers, lawyers, academics and anybody who can organize, create and get things done.

If you are working as an architect, painter or construction worker, but would like to get connected with an international crowd, we are looking for you.

If you want to get your hands dirty with programming, design or any other skill required to create and ship a quality digital product, you should get in touch.

Education is one of our biggest pillars. We share knowledge and educate each other. We have been doing this in Amsterdam, and we will be doing it in Greece.

Getting Organized

If you find yourself taking on the challenge of coordinating the Greek embassy here are some tips:

Get a buddy. You can not do it alone. Find someone to help.

Find a bar or taverna which will be the base of Meeten en Drinken—something not too crowded, with wifi. Make sure it is conveniently located and can be reached by public transportation.

Now start announcing. Twitter is a good way to start. We will make sure your tweets get amplified by retweeting from the @appsterdam account.

Start a blog with the details from the event, like location and other useful information. Perhaps write a post to introduce yourself and tell the world why you feel having a Greek Embassy is a good idea.

The first few times you meet it is a good idea to keep track of who shows up. Those are the people you are most likely be running the Embassy with. If you have an iPad, open a Notes or Numbers document and pass it around as a guestbook. Simple solutions are often the best.

But I Live In Thessaloniki!

If you can be in Athens while we are there, come over, help out and see how you can setup an Embassy elsewhere.

Knowing your fellow App Makers in different cities is a good thing, and we can use all the help we can get.

If you like to help remotely, I am sure we can find you something for you to do.

If you are a Greek App Maker living abroad, we would love to hear from you.

Get In Touch

If you want to help set up the Greek Appsterdam presence contact us. I can be found on twitter as @spllr , or send an email to greece@appsterdam.rs.

If you are not yet comfortable writing an email in English, no problem, we have Greek speakers in our organization. Just make sure the first sentence of your email is in English so we can identify what to forward.

I’m looking forward to meeting you all.

But The Crisis!

Yes, the crisis.