Your community is not backing down – with Minnebar15 rescheduled for the fall, we’ve added a virtual (mini) Minnebar on April 25th (the original date for Minnebar) to get us connected, pumped up, and learning.

We’ll be #TogetherApart for an epic day with some great speakers. Check out the info below, we hope to see you there!

(mini) Minnebar

Saturday, April 25th 2020
10:00 am – 2:30 pm
Virtual – via Crowdcast

TICKETS: Can be found HERE and will be released on Tuesday, April 7th at 2pm

 

EVENT SCHEDULE

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9:50 – 10:00 am
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Welcome! Let’s get started
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10:00 – 10:20

Dan Lew

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Session 1: What Tech Can Do About Climate Change

Climate change is here and we need to do something about it. Perhaps you’ve heard of actions you can take to help, but as a person in the tech industry, you want to know how to best apply your unique skills and position to the problem. In this talk, I’ll go over specific steps that people and companies in tech can do to help the climate change cause.
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10:30 – 10:50

Joe Karlsson
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Session 2: An Introduction To IoT (Internet of Toilets 🚽); Or How I Built an IoT Kitty Litter Box Using JavaScript

My favorite things in life are cats 🐈, computers 🖥 and crappy ideas 💩, so I decided to combine all three and make an IoT (Internet of Things) litter box using a Raspberry Pi and JavaScript! If you have ever wanted to get build your own IoT project, but didn’t know how to start, then this is the talk for you.

Together, we will go through how I setup my IoT Litter Box from start to finish. Including how to setup Node.js on a Raspberry Pi and how to connect sensors to a Raspberry Pi and how to read the sensor inputs with Node.js.

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11:00 – 11:20

Kisha Delain
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Session 3: Pair programming: Supporting Your Jr Devs Right

Hey! You’re a senior programmer! You want to mentor that new person, and what better way than to pair up with them on some programming? There’s all kinds of advice out there on different ways to pair program, and you have a ton of wisdom to impart. But you’re worried: what if you overwhelm your junior dev? How can you make this a good experience for them? Let’s talk about some ways that might help, and some things to try if things go off the rails.

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11:30 – 11:50

Jam Leomi
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Session 4: Don’t Panic: Security and Privacy in a Remote World

With the sudden change to working from home for much of Minnesota and the rest of the world, security and privacy in the digital sphere has more of a spotlight than ever. It makes things tough to navigate. In my talk, I hope to provide a balm to that navigation, giving tips on security and privacy from the context of a company employee, and for folks managing their own businesses.

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12:00 – 12:20

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Virtual Workout Courtesy of Alchemy 365

With much of our lives in front of screens, it’s important to keep wellness and self care as a part of our daily routine. We are excited to offer a virtual workout with Alchemy 365 for you to get your blood pumping in the middle of your day. No weights needed – just grab a water bottle and get ready to rock!

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12:30 – 12:50

Eryn O’Neil

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Session 5: Leadership Skills for the New Manager

You have the “Engineering” part of “Engineering Manager” figured out… but how about the “Manager” part?

Many first time managers got the job because of their skill as a developer, despite the fact that programming and managing are two different jobs. To be effective, new managers must develop the leadership skills to guide their teams to success.

In this session, you will start to develop your own leadership style as we break down the squishier parts of the job: building a cohesive and high-performing team; motivating and retaining talented engineers; giving effective feedback; having difficult conversations; and more.

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1:00 – 1:20

Gener8tor Team

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Session 6: How to Keep the Lights on during COVID

Focusing on small businesses, nonprofits, startups, freelancers and artists affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, this session will dig into ways to help you secure resources to withstand the current crisis. We’ll talk about federal, state, local and private programs (loans/grants/deferrals/law changes) and other resources to help weather the storm.

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1:30 – 1:50

Adeel Ahmad
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Session 7: 👩🏼‍💻🚀 Side Projects for Fun and Profit

This is the fourth year for this talk and as always it will be packed with real world tips, resources, anecdotes, and real talk to inspire you to start (and finish) that project lurking in your head. This is not another panel session. This talk is always fast-paced and very tactical.

Many people still think side projects are distractions that don’t lead to anything serious – but not you. You know that the biggest ideas usually start small, accidentally and evolve organically before changing the world. Here you’ll pick up plenty of tools for anyone with no time and no money to get that software idea off the ground.

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2:00 – 2:20

Paul DeBettignies

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Session 8: Hiring in slowing economy, recession and coming out the other side

To be blunt… most companies are dropping the ball right now. So many groups have a blank career page. At a time when they could be communicating about future hiring needs and collecting contact information… they have nothing.

Whether we will have a V, W, U or L shaped recovery it will take most groups some (a lot) time to staff up again. This will increase the length of the slowdown for them.

This session will provide leadership and recruiting teams tips and tricks of what they should be doing during this time, and if time permits, advice for job seekers to navigate these new economic times.

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2:20 – 2:30

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Closing

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