This month we'll hear from several local orgs using apps to help meet their mission. During this facilitated panel discussion, staff from Know Your City, RACC, and Oregon Nikkei Endowment and their app developers will chat about the development process, successes, and pitfalls.

Celebrate Portland and come prepared--download these awesome free apps:

• Know Your City - PDX Social History

• Regional Arts & Culture Council - Public Art PDX

• Oregon Nikkei Endowment - JapanTown PDX

Know Your City is a nonprofit organization that connects people to place. To fulfill our mission, we organize tours, lectures, publications and youth programs. Our programs engage the public through experiential learning, creative placemaking, policy-making and culture. More online at: knowyourcity.org.

The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) provides grants for artists, organizations and schools; manages an internationally acclaimed public art program; raises money for the arts through workplace giving; provides workshops and technical assistance for artists; and oversees a program to integrate arts into the curriculum in public schools.

To create a new form of access for the public art collections RACC manages for the City and County we partnered with Elsewise Media’s Matt Blair who was introduced to us through the City’s “CivicApps” program.  Matt’s wonderful Public Art PDX app for the iPhone is powered by the Filemaker database that RACC’s Public Art Collections Department constructed and maintains.

The mission of the Oregon Nikkei Endowment is to preserve and honor the history and culture of Japanese Americans in the Pacific Northwest, to educate the public about the Japanese American experience during World War II, and to advocate for the protection of civil rights for all Americans. Japantown PDX is a GPS-enabled app which guides users on a walking tour beyond the walls of our museum, the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center located in Portland’s historic Old Town neighborhood, and into the heart of the city’s pre and post-war Japanese American community.

GammaPoint is a the Portland based mobile app development company. GammaPoint’s expertise lies in creating navigation apps. GammaPoint has also created a web based platform App4Tour.com where anyone who is interested in creating a field tour or city tour guide app can sign up  and submit the content to create a native customized geo-locations based app without any knowledge of computer programming. Japantown PDX app was a pilot project between UofPortland students, Oregon Nikkei and GammaPoint. With its expertise in navigation apps, GammaPoint created a geo-aware app for Oregon Nikkei and also was able to test their App4Tour.com beta platform.  Explore Portland Oregon’s historic Japantown with this user-friendly walking tour app. Also check out some of the other popular apps from GammaPoint such as Extra Mile and WeatherRun.

Matt Blair creates apps and websites that enrich our connections to culture, place, and each other. He led development of iOS apps that were selected by Apple for their iPad Apps of the Year collections in 2012 and 2013, and also designed and built a poetry editor for iPad called Line & Verse. His Portland-based work includes projects around heritage trees, public art, history, and poetry boxes. All four of these projects aspire to use technology to encourage the exploration of the real world.

Presenters

Todd Mayberry currently serves as the director of collections and exhibits at the Oregon Nikkei Endowment. He has fourteen years of experience in the cultural sector having worked at Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Minnesota Historical Society and Walker Art Center.

Teena Jain is the co-founder of GammaPoint. She has over 18 years of software development experience. She has been working in mobile apps industry long before the apps became household name. Teena has worked for PalmSource and many startups before venturing out for entrepreneurship. She also brings UI/UX experience to GammaPoint team.

Marc Moscato is responsible for directing the organization, managing program committees and guiding the organization’s mission. Previous to KYC, he has worked for Museum of Contemporary Craft, City Club of Portland, Microcosm Publishing, Peripheral Produce and Squeaky Wheel. He received his MS in Arts & Administration from University of Oregon.

Keith Lachowicz and his team oversee a collection of 1900 artworks—everything from small prints and drawings to 170+ large scale outdoor sculptures. As technology expands to provide new ways to interact with art collections, museum and public art professionals have become the on-point staff for gathering, organizing and supplying the data that search and access applications are constructed with.

Matt Blair has been a technology consultant for seventeen years. When not staring at screens, he spends his time reading old books on paper, and stomping through the mud in Forest Park. He is also a volunteer writing workshop facilitator for Write Around Portland, and joined their board in 2013.

Agenda

Networking and refreshments 6pm-6:15pm/6:30pm

Presentation 6:15pm/6:30pm-8pm

Accessibility

Mobility Access: This venue is wheelchair accessible. There are no steps to climb.

Hearing Access: We will have access to a PA system at this venue.

Sight Access: We will use a projector at this venue.

We want everyone to be able to participate in the PDXTech4Good community and events. Please don't hesitate to let us know what we can do to accommodate your needs.

Parking & Transportation

Street parking.

What you'll get out of PDXTech4Good events

Nonprofit staffers will find a friendly, welcoming atmosphere for those not experienced with technology, and many chances to ask questions of tech-experienced nonprofits and experts.

Techies will find opportunities to hear the real-world stories of nonprofit clients, and put their own expertise to social good — as well as the potential for lasting relationships (be they paid or volunteer) with leading organizations in our community.

Activists and community organizers will see and be given the chance to present on successful uses of technology for social change. We'll explore how technology can help support activism and where activism can push it forward.