Eleven years in and we’re just getting started.

On the heels of announcing our Executive Director search, we’ve unveiled our new brand identity and extensive web redesign, thanks to local digital agency, Brave New Media. It’s safe to say, plans for growth are in our sightline.

The new site gives users a better understanding of our mission:

To create experiences where the passion and potential of the Minnesota technology community come together,

which is what Ben Edwards and Luke Francl dreamed up back in 2006 with that first Minnedemo and Minnesota BarCamp.

The new site draws attention to our two key events – Minnedemo and Minnebar – which have helped evolve us into the organization we are today. In hopes of growing our reach, the site now let’s you explore past sessions and demos, read our FAQs, and review presenter guides (no more PDF attachments!) all in one place. Our hope is that we attract new audiences, inspire new presenters, and continue connecting Minnesotans, urban and rural, to a vast and growing tech region.

The new site encourages those familiar and unfamiliar with Minnestar to explore other ways to connect. The Community tab opens avenues to volunteer, donate, or become a supporter or sponsor. Our content refresh helps visitors learn more about our board that helps run this small but mighty ship, sift through our many gracious sponsors, and sign-up for our newsletter (no spam, no high-volume, we promise).

In eleven years, we’ve grown into a community that’s hosted dozens of events with thousands of participants, hundreds of presenters, and tens of projects, but we’ve truly only just begun.  As we’ve seen success with our flagship events, bringing on a new Executive Director and redesigning our site and identity will help us create potentially more events, engage new communities or offer additional services to the community.

Have ideas? We’ve love to hear them! Connect with us at team@minnestar.org.