With the new Atlanta Tech Village a reality, it’s time to start brainstorming and planning what we need to do to make it a success. The true measure of success, over a 10 year horizon, is the number of startups, tech or otherwise, that grow into real, sustainable businesses creating jobs and wealth for our community. More successful tech companies will also enhance the tech-related service providers in the Village as well as the desirability of larger tech companies to have a remote office in the building (e.g. for engineering or sales). Now that we have the end in mind, let’s backup to the present and start working on how to build community at ATV.
Community isn’t something that can be forced and will come from a number of places including serendipitous interactions (imagine how many great conversations will take place at Chipotle across the street!). Here are a few ideas to help build community at ATV:
- Host meetups, get togethers, and conferences in the cool boardroom and awesome event space (room for up to 150 people as well as smaller options)
- Provide an amazing training lab for teachers and training companies to teach courses (e.g. learn Ruby on Rails in 10 weeks) and do workshops (e.g. SEO 101 for entrepreneurs — a half day session) — learning with a group of peers or as a cohort is one of the best ways to build trust and relationships
- Facilitate office hours with venture capitalists, coordinate job fairs, and “speed dating” for members of the Village to meet each other
- Collaborate with other tech and startup organizations in town (e.g. ATDC, Flashpoint, Hypepotamus, TAG, etc)
- Great coffee shop with tons of indoor and outdoor seating
Community is one of the most important aspects of the Atlanta Tech Village and it’ll take time to build it.
What else? What are some other ideas for building community at Atlanta Tech Village?
David Cummings on Startups 
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