At the first Providence Geek Dinner of 2011, Newschoolyard Founder & CEO Mark Bistline and Platform Architect Jason Pamental spoke about their open source-based web platform for independent schools. I caught up with them after their talk for this video. [Video link]

Photo Credit: Matt Coolidge of GC:PVD

Wednesday, January 19th, 2010, 5:30 – 8pm (followed immediately by  The Providence Blogosphere Post-Holiday Party at the Salon)
AS220, 115 Empire Street, Providence, RI
FREE (buy your own food and drink – it’s cheap)

Join us Wednesday for the first Geek Dinner of the new decade! Afterwards, we’ll join all our friends at Greater City: Providence, Rhode Island’s Future and Providence Daily Dose for the awesome annual Providence Blogosphere (Post-)Holiday Party just a few blocks away at the excellent new bar/lounge, The Salon!

The January Geek Dinner is going to feature – Newschoolyard – the latest excellent addition to the Providence tech scene:

Recently relocated from Bristol to the Providence’s historical waterfront, Newschoolyard is fast becoming the leading web platform for independent schools. Recently redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up on the open-source Drupal CMS, Newschoolyard now offers much more power for a fraction of the cost.

At Wednesday’s Geek Dinner, Newschoolyard Founder & CEO Mark Bistline and Platform Architect Jason Pamental, will give an overview of the company and a demo of its impressive platform. They’ll also talk about their recent move into office space overlooking Providence harbor and the hurricane barrier, and cool job opportunities with the company.

Please RSVP at Facebook – and while you’re there please join our Facebook group. And if you want to join our very-low-volume email announcement send an email to Jack Templin, jtemplin@gmail.com with your name and affiliation.

As always, for first-timers here are the details on the Geek Dinners:

• The event itself is FREE! Beverages and food are for sale at AS220’s excellent bar and restaurant.


• Doors open at 5:30pm. Socializing, eating and drinking up until the 30 min presentation/q&a around 6:30pm. Afterwards, back to socializing, eating, drinking…


• It’s totally casual. Wear whatever, bring whoever, arrive and take off whenever! And don’t worry about eating or not – come famished or full – eating is optional, and frankly, the least of the festivities (that’s not say the food isn’t good – it’s actually great)


• Topics of conversation will vary as they will at any gathering of geeks, but many of us will be talking about AJAX, mash-ups, start-ups, new devices, innovative business models, interaction design, social computing, digital art, web services, etc. etc. etc.


• There is Wi-Fi so bring your connected device of choice.