"Hack the Future" Event at the Tech!

BAY AREA KIDS LEARN HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD AT “HACK THE FUTURE”

Over 100 students will participate in a full day “hackathon” to learn about innovation from rock-star tech leaders like Pong creator Allan Alcorn and engineers from Facebook.

SAN JOSE, SILICON VALLEY, CA - On Saturday, January 28, 2012, the third Hack the Future will take place at The Tech Museum in San Jose, California. Hack the Future is a one-day hackathon, designed to inspire and encourage middle and high school geeks to take learning into their own hands and show them what it's like to be a hacker.

Joe Mathes, startup engineer and Hack the Future co-creator, explains, "Hack the Future is the first chance many kids will have to enter the exciting, advancing field of technology. Programming is literacy. To be great, you have to start when you're young, and you have to learn it from someone who knows the language. As professionals on the cutting edge, we wanted to teach what we know straight from the front lines."

Over 30 mentors will teach the day-long event, which consists of a series of stations where young hackers can experiment with everything from creating computer games to soldering. Lee Felsenstein, the designer of the first mass-produced portable computer, will be helping to inspire the next generation of future tech leaders. Local engineer Allan Alcorn, best known as the designer of the wildly popular 1970s video arcade game Pong, will also be on hand to share his remarkable story and to help guide students’ tech creations.

“The highlight of the day is seeing the kids accomplish something they are proud of,” says mentor Sarah Elliott. “You should see their faces when they create code that ends up moving a half million dollar robot. It’s incredibly rewarding.” 

Mentors from companies including Facebook, Twilio and other Bay Area-based startups will mentor the students. Microsoft is one of the event’s primary sponsors, as well as The Tech Museum.

Jeff Lindsay, Founding Director at Hacker Dojo, says “With a laptop, you can change the world, start the next Facebook. Nowhere is this passion more evident than at Hack the Future.”

For Willie Yee, 12, the event is like Christmas in January; it's the reason he signed up so quickly. "I like programming," says the San Jose 7th grader. "But I really want to learn more complex commands for some programming languages." 

Reporters interested in interviewing Hack the Future mentors or students should contact Daniel Jabbour at 516-642-1119 or daniel@hackthefuture.org.

For more information on Hack the Future visit http://www.hackthefuture.org/

San Jose's Varentec Raises $7.7M

Yet another San Jose green tech company has received a chunk of change to get off the ground. A VC firm specializing in clean tech has pumped $7.7M into Varentec, which is making smart grid technology. I'm really liking this niche. Building a market dominance in green/clean tech not only brings economic benefits to the area, but there is something comforting in knowing we're developing technology that will make the world a better place.

Source: SVBJ

Wednesday Wishlist: Downtown Retail (Non-Restaurant)

Okay, let me start off by saying I the love the restaurants in Downtown San Jose. The restaurant scene here pretty much exploded in 2011 (one day I'll post the stats for the number of new eateries that opened last year), and things are only going to get better in 2012. However, in order for Downtown to really succeed we need more diverse retail offerings besides just restaurants. My Wednesday wishlist for the week is to see more traditional retail and new services Downtown.

The photo below is of a new Foot & Body Massage place coming soon to 2nd Street. It's a start =). Thanks Arlene for the pic.

San Jose Three Creeks Trail Moves Forward!

Three different agencies have come together to make a critical land acquisition that allow San Jose's Three Creeks Trail project to come closer to realization. The City of San Jose, The Santa Clara County Open Space Authority, and the Parks and Recreation Department of Santa Clara County have jointly chipped in a total of $6M to acquire land and add an additional mile to San Jose's interconnected trail network. This will eventually connect the Guadalupe River, Coyote Creek, and Los Gatos Creek Trails.

There are currently 53 miles of trails in San Jose, with plans to bring the total to over 100 miles, making it one of the nation's largest jurisdictional networks.

For more info, I highly recommend checking out the press release right over here. Thanks to Yves for the tip!

Sentinel Tree Gifted to History Park by Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County

San José, California – January 10, 2012 --- Long before Global Positioning Systems (GPS) or Mapquest, there were travel landmarks. In the days of wagon trains and horseback the early settlers found the way to San José marked by a giant sycamore. Anyone living in or around the Santa Clara Valley will undoubtedly be familiar with the lyrics to Do You Know the Way to San José , a hit song made popular by Dionne Warwick in 1968. The Sentinel Tree, a sycamore on North 21^st Street, was that landmark.

Nearly twelve years ago an effort was made to save the oldest tree in San José, in the Northside Neighborhood at 21^st Street, where the sycamore stood in a front yard. But it was declared ‘not possibl to safely preserve the sentinel sycamore’ by arborists. At that time, ‘a community meeting was held for the purpose of deciding where to plant genetically identical clones of the tree.’

Three cloned grafts were taken from that Western Sycamore in 2000. On Thursday afternoon (between noon and 2:30 pm), January 19, one of the clones is to be transplanted at History Park at Kelley Park. Native to California, the Western Sycamore, or California Sycamore, Platanus racemosa, is common in the Western United States.

The Master Gardeners will be moving it from its temporary location to grow and thrive in an open space at History Park, near the Greenwalt House, now home to the Immigrant Resettlement & Cultural Center (IRCC), the Museum of the Boat People & the Republic of Vietnam.

“We are really excited about having a new "living history" component to History Park,” said Alida Bray, President and CEO of History San José. “It is the perfect addition that will be incorporated into our school programs immediately!”

# # #

http://www.northside-sj.org/html/neighborhood/landmarks/lost-giant_sycamore.html

About History San José: 

History San José is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and sharing the continuing history of the Santa Clara Valley.  HSJ manages one of the largest and most comprehensive regional history collections in the State of California, from 1784 Spanish governmental records to twenty-first century Silicon Valley technology.  History San José aspires to provide innovative national leadership in preserving and sharing regional history by engaging diverse audiences in exploring the varieties of human experience that contributes to the continuing history of San José and the Santa Clara Valley. 

History San José     1650 Senter Road     San José, CA  95112      408.287.2290

www.historysanjose.org

Jill Arnone
The Arnone Group

Catch the 49er Game at the San Pedro Square Market!

San Pedro Square Market "Happenings" Newsletter 

Hi Everyone,

It's been a while since our last communication - thanks to everyone who has joined the mailing list in the meantime!

SPSM is in the midst of a growth spurt . We opened two new restaurants and expanded our seating area over the holidays. We've been enjoying steadily increasing business every week, especially at lunchtime. We've signed two new vendors in the last few weeks, Loteria Taco Bar and The Little Cheese Shoppe, bringing our total signed leases up to 18 exciting, independent local businesses.

We'd like to invite all of you down to the Market on Sunday to root the 49ers on in the NFC Championship game at 3:30. It will be Happy Hour all day at the Market Bar, which means discounts on beer, wine, well drinks, and selected cocktails. Last week we had a great crowd for the Divisional round, and we'd love to build on that this weekend!
 

In other Market news, we have two upcoming live concerts:

- Friday, February 3rd with the Burroughs Brothers Band
- Friday, February 10th, with blues rockers Pearl Alley.

We're also very excited to announce that we will begin our year-round weekly Saturday Farmers Market on April 7th, so stay tuned for more info on that.

Thank you all for your continued interest and support. If you haven't made it out to the Market yet, there's never been a better time to visit, come check us out!

San Jose Unemployment Drops Below 9%

More good news for the South Bay job market. Unemployment has fallen from 9.2% to 8.9% in December. In the previous year, unemployment was 10.6%. Having a 1.7% drop over 12 months is dramatic. This is a stellar sign for the local economy.

For more info, click here.

Alaska is Adding Flights to Reno

Starting June 4th, you'll be able to hop on a new Alaska Airlines / Horizon Air flight to the biggest little city in the world. The best part: $69 inaugural fares and double miles for flights between June 4th and July 31st. The worst part: this actually replaces a Southwest route that is being discontinued April 10th. You win some, you lose some. In this case I think we more or less broke even.

More details right over here.