BathSpark is a new event that brings together the people of Bath who work in technology. Its stipulated aims are “to create opportunity, encourage diversity and spark new ventures”. It is described as “social networking (for real) with local digital people enjoying a drink, and talking about what they love”. It grew out of previous informal tech people meet-ups under the organising eye of The Filter’s CEO, David Maher Roberts.
The inaugural meet-up was held on 23 February in the Market Bar and was a roaring success. Around 100 people attended and there was a great range of people eager to chat about all things tech/creative-based, from start-up CEOs to coders to publishers to freelance types. It was good to see many dialogues between the two cultures, with good contacts made and information exchanged. Many found it useful for locating talented Bath individuals for entrepreneurial projects.
Eden Ventures kindly sponsored the bar, Future Publishing provided a magazine subscription prize and Ripe Digital did an amazing job producing laminated name cards (complete with Twitter usernames). Even though the ale ran out the bottles and pizza kept flowing to fuel the conversation.
Comments from attendees can be found here.