This week, Code sat down for some Ecuadorian coffee with local tech leader: Matt Webb. Matt is the founder of DenverScript, a co-organizer of Develop Denver, and is currently a front end developer at Blinker. Matt has worked on projects for BBC, WWF, National Geographic, Sony, Discovery, GABF, Stanford University, and more.
Learn about why he got involved in the community, his favorite up-and-coming trends in the tech world, his prediction for the technology of 2017, and more in the interview below.
What is your involvement in the Denver Tech community?
After the Denver JS meetup somewhat died out, there wasn’t really a great JavaScript community anymore, it was just broken up into multiple smaller meetups. So, I started DenverScript because I wanted to bring that group of developers back together, and so far it seems to work pretty well. I also help co-organize Develop Denver, which is an annual developer conference and this year will be our fifth year.
One of the main reasons I got involved in the developer community was seeing how much Drew Dahlman, the founder of Develop Denver, had given back to the community. The community was just always so supportive; there are always people willing to help me with projects or finding new jobs, things like that. Because of that support I wanted to be involved, and it’s why I’ve stayed involved.
Why did you choose Denver?
I actually used to be a semi-professional skier, and my sponsors said they would drop me unless I moved out west, so that’s why I originally moved out here. I thought Denver was pretty cool, and even though I don’t ski professionally anymore, I decided to stay just because of the weather, mountains, and the awesome people I’ve met here.
When I first moved out here, I went to The Art Institute of Colorado for interactive media design which, in short, I ended up learning how to code. I found that the development community here is really strong. There are plenty of places that also have strong communities, but Denver is different. The community is small enough that everyone knows someone, so basically we all end up somehow knowing each other from one place or the other.
Finish reading the interview here on the Code Talent Blog.
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