Help us plan this weekend's CrisisCampPDX. Bring your lunch to NedSpace and look for the "CrisisCampPDX" sign inside. You don't need to be there the entire time, come to as much of it as you can. You can get take-out lunch at nearby restaurants, like in Chinatown or the foodcarts at 10th and SW Alder.

More about CrisisCampPDX: - RSVP for the free event: http://crisiscamphaitipdx.eventbrite.com/ - Follow the global effort: @CrisisCamp - Follow Portland effort: @CrisisCampPDX - Join Portland mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/crisiscamppdx

We all rely on the bonds of our community in order for our businesses to thrive. We seek intros to VCs, backchannels to clients, advice from our peers and mentors. In normal times, these bonds heavily rely on in-person interactions — coffees, lunches, beers, and 1:1's.

Reading body language is a critical component to reinforcement of those bonds. In our most vulnerable moments, we want to ensure that the other party is present, listening, and empathizing. And beyond the 1:1 interactions, in social places like our coffee shops and coworking spaces, we create room for serendipity — that chance encounter that leads to something new and unexpected, whether it's a new business idea or a solution to an existing problem facing a member of our community.

During this pandemic, we've been stripped of the ability to interact as normal. Sure, we have all these video chat tools — but it's not a replacement of our in-person interactions, just a digital proxy. And while those proxies may suffice for our 1:1 meetings, they certainly aren't helping with serendipity.

So how do we form community in a time of crisis? How do we create space for chance? And how can we come together to listen, to engage, to be present, when many of us are already at our wits end staring at a video on a computer screen all day long?

Join us for a mentor Q&A with Marcelino Alvarez, Chief Product Officer at Fresh Consulting. He was formerly CEO of Uncorked Studios, which co-founded Safecast during the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and ensuing nuclear disaster. He'll share perspectives from then and now as he undertakes other efforts to maintain his community and pursue digital serendipity.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/piepdx-marcelino-alvarez-community-projects-20200416

Please join us with a former founder who has seen the ups and downs of the economy for insights on what to suspect — and some guidance that may help you navigate this new normal.

Elia Freedman was founder and CEO of Infinity Softworks, which he started in 1997 as a senior in college, leveraging both his business training and programming ability. The company has helped more than 20 million professionals and students in real estate, financial services, math and science who use calculation every day to solve problems and generate proposals, both in the field and at their desk.

The company's primary app, PowerOne, has been in existence as apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm OS, and Windows computers for more 20 years, Infinity Softworks re-launched PowerOne as a web and mobile service in 2018.

As a founder, Elia weathered both the dotcom bust and the mortgage crisis. Which is sure to inform a unique vantage on our current state of existence within a pandemic ravaged economy.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/founder-ama-elia-freedman-powerone