Are you part of an organization that uses technology for good (i.e. using social media, innovative website, video, mobile tech)? Do you know of an organization that uses tech for good? Then this event is for you!

It's the time of year to give thanks, and this year, we want to extend thanks to all the nonprofits and social good entities in Portland that do amazing - yet often unrecognized - work with technology all year long. Join us at the Lucky Lab to celebrate our collaborative gratitude to Portland organizations. Share your organization's story and hear how others in the community are using technology to help make Portland a better place for us all.

You can help kick-start this year's TweetsGivingPDX by nominating your organization or one that impresses you through it's remarkable use of technology for good. Go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=t4p98cYbnkSe0mpX9E4Zyg_3d_3d to nominate an organization. Nominations will be posted to a wiki so we can all acknowledge the wonderful good our PDX organizations are achieving with technology.

Follow our local TweetsGiving activity at #TweetsGivingPDX.

TweetsGivingPDX is part of the national gratitude effort - Tweetsgiving. For more information on TweetsGiving visit tweetsgiving.epicchange.org.

Mercy Corps and Startup Weekend have partnered to create a first-of-its kind event focused on solving some of the world’s toughest problems through technology and entrepreneurship, measured by solutions formulated from the boldest of ideas.

Tech4Change will serve as a platform to encourage new ways to think about entrepreneurship in challenging environments around the globe. The 54-hour marathon event will be focused on developing tech tools for the greater good and creating viable social enterprises that can scale to address global needs.

We need sharp business development and marketing experts with ideas for social change! We need Ruby and mobile engineers and developers! We need UI/UX experts with an eye for all things beautiful!

Here's an opportunity for you to gain experience working with social impact entrepreneurs and nonprofit program officers! Put your skills to the test at Tech4Change and develop a minimum viable product with a shot for deployment with Mercy Corps!

Tech4Change will take place at Mercy Corps Portland Headquarters and will start with participants pitching their ideas for social change. You'll also get to hear pitches from Mercy Corps personnel who've been in the field. From there, the crowd will choose the best ideas that will be developed during the weekend. The top prize winning team will have a chance at deploying their application with Mercy Corps in the field!

Mercy Corps is a non-profit disaster relief and development organization with operations in over 40 countries. Its mission is to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities. Mercy Corps strives to catalyze community-led and market-driven solutions to global poverty issues. Increasingly, Mercy Corps is employing technologies which have the potential to give millions of people new access to financial services and information, enabling them to grow businesses and improve their livelihoods, health and communities. Mercy Corps is also increasingly using startup technologies to streamline operations and meet compliance needs, freeing up human and financial resources to benefit those in need.www.mercycorps.org

The dream: The "Craig's List" of Activism & Civic Engagement, or.... Calagator + more features + more functions, focused on activism and available in every city every where. Because it should be.

Come tech types, come biz dev, come social media types, come change-makers!

Help create the site that will make your life easier, further your favorite causes, and impact the world!

One source for all the documentary screenings, protests, political debates, historical tours, and various geek events, in every city. A tool that empowers everybody to create change in their world. A tool for organizations to reach beyond their choir, discover new allies on issues and further their causes.

The event calendar is open source, forked from the Calagator code-base, in Ruby on Rails.

Yes, of course food and beer! Please RSVP http://www.eventbrite.com/event/7162879365/estw

If you haven't already signed up for the Hack tomorrow at PSU, we hope some details included here will entice you. To prepare our participants for a fun and productive day, below are details and resources for the Hack.

Goals: To generate ideas are innovative to solving environmental and sustainability, social equity issues through utilization of software and mobile apps. Don’t forget to have some fun.

Idea Generation: To start, you should ask the following questions: 1) What issues you and your team would like to tackle? (ie. carbon emissions reduction by buildings or vehicles, solar potential identifier, change of personal habits, e-waste tracking, etc.) 2) What do other similar applications exist on the market? Sometimes, building on existing apps can resolve a more refined product. 3) What is the marketability? Is it scalable?

The best project ideas are one that you are passionate about, and have some components of competition and linkage to social media.

Finding Data: While you are brainstorming ideas, you should also consider data availability as well. It is not the end of the world if you don’t have data sets or APIs to mock up a prototype. Simply build your own datasets, even if just a few that are enough for you to test out your product.

See the Cleanweb Hack resource guide for APIs, data sets, sample projects and project ideas. (http://tinyurl.com/m7a744e)

Judging Criteria: At the end of day, your prototype will be scored on these criteria: 1) Impact on resource and sustainability issues 2) Design and usability of prototype 3) Feasibility and marketability 4) Good use of datasets and APIs

Prizes: 1st Place - $500, 2nd Place - $250

Bragging right is priceless.

Our judges are looking forward to your innovations!

Winston Saunders, Director of Data Center Security Initiatives at Intel Chris Harder, Division Manager at the Portland Development Commission (PDC) Skip Newberry, President at the Technology Association of Oregon (TAO)

Questions? Ask us on Twitter (@cleanwebPDX), Facebook or via email [email protected]

There will be food, drink and good companies. Come out to have some fun!

What is Cleanweb? Cleanweb is a meme, a movement, a market that individuals/organizations are leveraging information technologies to address the world's critical resource challenges. This web of technologies can optimize how we use resources across the way we live, work, and play. It creates the biggest impact and economic opportunity of our time.

"In diversity there is beauty and there is strength." - Maya Angelou

Design has the power to permeate every product, moment, and solution in our lives.

At the same time, diversity of thought leads to innovations in design that have the power to transform everyday life.

The question is, how do we design products, services & environments that reflect a diversity of experiences and perspectives, which are shaped by things like race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual identity, ability/disability and location, among other factors?

Please join us and our incredible panel of diversity, design + technology leaders, as we seek to address what diversity means, not only in the world of design and technology, but in the world at large.

About our panelists:

Tyesha Snow has spent more than a decade creating and shaping interactive experiences and successfully managing software products, working with some of the world’s largest agencies to create brand affinity for Fortune 500 companies in multiple industries.

James Pritchett is an award-winning designer, known for delivering out-of-the-box concepts, dynamic visuals and innovative strategies for online and print delivery. His background includes acclaimed work on campaigns for startups to leading Fortune 500 brands. He is currently founder & CEO of The More Company.

Joy Alise Davis is a collaborative design strategist and interdisciplinary social practitioner. She is a founding partner of Design Culture Lab, a research-based social lab dedicated to the transformation of neighborhoods through collaborative design strategies that address complex spatial issues of cultural, racial and ethnic inequality.

An expert in front-end web development and UI, Darren Bruckner has been designing and building quality websites and web applications for major companies for almost 10 years. He’s currently founder and CEO of Workfrom.

About our moderator:

Stephen Green is currently serving as community director of Elevate Capital and has over 10 years of experience connecting small/diverse businesses owners to the resources they need.

There's been a recent shift in how activists are trying to bring about social change, and SJF is at the forefront of this shift.

Come find out how you can get involved!

This article has a great breakdown on this new trend of entrepreneurial activism:

For some activists, being entrepreneurial has meant the following things: treating their activist work like a business, turning to popular social media platforms to put out their own press releases and looking for people to invest in their initiative with money and not just good faith.

More about the hosting organizations:

Social Justice Fund Northwest is a foundation working at the frontlines of social change. They leverage the resources of their members to foster significant, long-term social justice solutions throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana & Wyoming.

PDXNALTA is a networking group for underrepresented people of color in tech.

Idealist is all about connecting idealists - people who want to do good - with opportunities for action and collaboration. With more than 100,000 organizations and 1.4 million monthly visitors to our English, Spanish & French sites, Idealist helps people move from intention to action all over the world.

Resolution Fest is a week-long celebration of the people and communities reimagining the landscape of the tech industry. Over 8 days, we'll examine the intersections of technology, identity, culture, community service, education, social change, collaboration, creativity, and more.

To see the collection of events in our schedule, visit http://resfestpdx.com!

Affect Conf is a 2-day community conference examining the work, design, and culture of social change. To keep the emphasis on action, Affect also includes a Group Volunteering Half Day for attendees to directly help out local nonprofits.

This year: join us for our second-ever event on Sept 15 and 16 to go behind the scenes of social impact projects like 5 Calls, Code for America's Clear My Record, and We Read Too and get primers on social issues like intersectional disability justice and small-scale wealth redistribution.

Our keynotes Sydette Harry (@Blackamazon) and Shaun Lau (@NoTotally) will bookend Affect. Tickets are available via: https://affectconf.com/register

At Affect, we work hard to prioritize accessibility and will have:

onsite childcare
a quiet room
live CART captioning
ASL interpreters
reserved seating
all-gender restrooms (multi-stall and one single stall)
wheelchair-accessible paths

Affect ("effect") is a 2-day conference featuring stories from multiply marginalized activists, creators, and technologists working towards systemic change. To pair words with action, we also partner with local nonprofits to create projects that attendees can dive into.

This year's topics:
The Future Is Accessible, Annie Segarra (keynote)

The Personal is Political #BeingBlackandMuslim, Aïdah Aliyah Rasheed

By and for Us: How Marginalized Communities Are Redesigning Sex Ed Online, Cameron Glover

Consensual Software: Prioritizing User Trust and Safety, Danielle Leong

Queering Mental Health: An Analysis on the Criminalization of Black People and Mental Health, Da’Shaun Harrison

Activism Is Not Accessible: How To Include Disabled and Chronically Ill Folks in Your Movement, Diane Murray

We the Dreamers, Heldáy de la Cruz

How Gabby Antonio is Smashing the Imperialist, White Supremacist, Capitalist Patriarchy, Luann Algoso

Patterns of Digital Gentrification, Lynn Cyrin

Is Wakanda Accessible? And Other Questions from the Intersection of Black Womanhood and Disability., Mallory Thomas

Grassroots Organizing Strategies for Healing Our Black Trans, Nonbinary & Queer Bodies, Neesha Powell-Twagirumukiza