Hackers, artists, entrepreneurs and self-proclaimed geeks of all stripes staged their own Occupy movement on a downtown block of Palo Alto Saturday afternoon -- though in this case, city officials were in on the game.
Crowds of techno-savvy residents braved the fickle weather and descended on High Street for the "Super Happy Block Party," a mash-up of block party, Hackathon, networking gala and food festival. The event featured a fleet of food trucks, "silent disco" DJ's whose music can only be heard through headphones, hundreds of hackers and dozens of informational kiosks set up by businesses and nonprofits on the three bottom tiers of the High Street garage.
The event was co-hosted by Innovation Endeavors, a venture firm founded by Google board Chair Eric Schmidt, and Talenthouse, a social-network platform for artists and programmers. Both are headquartered on the High Street block between University and Hamilton avenues -- a block that was shut down for the 12-hour event (which is scheduled to end at 1 a.m. Sunday).
Hundreds of visitors throughout the day packed into the two companies' offices to set up laptops, don headphones and work their coding magic. Hundreds of others mingled, browsed and exchanged business cards. The event proceeded with no noticeable glitches through the morning sun and the afternoon rain until about 3 p.m., when an elevator at the Innovation Endeavors building got stuck for about 45 minutes, prompting Palo Alto firefighters from Engine 1 to come to the rescue. While all 10 elevator occupants were unharmed and generally in good humor, access to the company's fourth-floor suite was subsequently restricted to the coders and organizers already inside.
Much of the action at the event took place in the High Street garage, where tables run by nonprofit groups and businesses vied for attention with a pingpong table, a technology petting zoo and an education event by Hack the Future, an organization that teaches kids about computers.
"I just love doing things that are so typically San Francisco Bay Area," said Jeff Brown, a visitor who attended the event with his two daughters. His 6-year-old daughter, Charlotte, was across the table from him, learning how to solder from Eric Allen, a Hack the Future member.
"You can't do this sort of thing anywhere else," Brown said.
Others went to the third floor of the garage to pitch their inventions to venture capitalists, who were rotating in shifts at two tables. More than 200 people reserved appointment slots with venture capitalists, said Quinn Emanuel, an operations manager at Innovation Endeavors who was coordinating the venture-capital corner. Those who couldn't get a seat at the table mingled with potential investors in a less formal fashion at the side of the garage.
"All offered slots have been filled but we're trying to accommodate everyone," Emanuel said.
The event was sponsored by Innovation Endeavors, Talenthouse, Institute for the Future and the City of Palo Alto. City Manager James Keene, who attended Super Happy Block Party, said the city was happy to support the event because it gives officials a chance to build relationships with the high-tech community. Keene and the city's Chief Information Officer Jonathan Reichental also plan to release various sets of public data in the coming months and encourage local programmers to turn this data into apps and other useful tools for residents.
Last week, the city unveiled its first example of an online tool designed by hackers for the city -- an index of local streets and conditions called StreetViewer.
Reichental also attended the event and wore headphones -- connoting his participation in the "silent disco" -- as he navigated through Talenthouse.
"This is a festival for geeks and I mean it in the best possible way," he said.
Vice Mayor Greg Scharff, who toured Innovation Endeavors with his son, Jason, said he believes that with an expected 2,000 visitors, the event is shaping up to be the largest Hackathon in the nation's history.
"When you see all these young people here creating the future, you've got to feel good about the future of America," Scharff said.
Event organizers have told the Weekly that they envision the block party as a potential "template of innovation." The goal, according to Innovation Endeavors and Talenthouse officials, is to both celebrate the creativity and technological prowess of Palo Alto and to create a new model for generating ideas.
Comments
Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Mar 31, 2012 at 10:24 pm
on Mar 31, 2012 at 10:24 pm
Were the venture capitalist appointments advertised?? I wish I had known! Any VC's up this late?
Midtown
on Apr 1, 2012 at 9:41 pm
on Apr 1, 2012 at 9:41 pm
I bet some one hacked those elevators?
Charleston Gardens
on Apr 1, 2012 at 11:49 pm
on Apr 1, 2012 at 11:49 pm
Web Link not smolder
Menlo Park
on Apr 2, 2012 at 10:59 am
on Apr 2, 2012 at 10:59 am
Too bad I only found out about this event after it had occurred. Where was it advertised?
Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Apr 2, 2012 at 11:07 am
on Apr 2, 2012 at 11:07 am
They should do this every 6 months, invite more people and take over University. Move other Burning Man....
Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Apr 2, 2012 at 11:38 am
on Apr 2, 2012 at 11:38 am
The term "Hackers" is poorly chosen, given that has become associated with illegal access to information on supposedly secured computer systems.
There was a yearly meeting of programmers and systems designers in the mid-1980s, also called "Hackers". It was usually a three-day event, that required an invitation for entry. It was useful at the time for networking, and sharing of ideas, but the sessions stopped when the group's organizers lost interest.
A better name for such an event would be: "Innovation!" or "Innovation and the Future". While Palo Alto City Government is hardly the right partner to be involved in anything like this event--given its long-term hostility to Information Technology, and the capabilities of the Internet, local VCs, on the other hand, would be well-advised to become the sponsors of such an event. The local Chamber of Commerce would be good sponsors too--if they were not just a voice for the real estate/property developers in town. And the so-called "Business Improvement District" could be a sponsor, except that it is simply in business to gauge membership fees out of the businesses, while providing nothing of value in return.
Because of Google, and Apple, and the Internet providers, the world has changed a lot in the past twenty years. Technologies like "Facebook" have emerged from no where to disrupt brick-n-mortar business (like the Post Office and news media) and even may have a distorting effect on first generation Internet technology--like e-mail.
Older Palo Altans, still clinging to paper-based technologies, are definitely in need of "education"--not only to the current capabilities of the Internet, but also to get a vision of what is coming next. Of course, Youtube is a good place to put this sort of information, but street faires have been around for 1500 years (or more).. so they are a good place to meet and greet and give folks a taste of the future.
Palo Alto City Government definitely needs to get a new point-of-view about how to deliver services. To what extent this sort of event will shake loose a few cobwebs at City Hall is an open question.
Barron Park
on Apr 2, 2012 at 1:03 pm
on Apr 2, 2012 at 1:03 pm
I support the idea of giving this event a different name. I also seriously doubt that the City of Palo Alto should be a sponsor, beyond granting the request to block off High Street. It's beyond me why the city thinks it must be involved in everything like this - it's "so Palo Alto". I'm one of the older residents, but am fairly up to date on IT, though I choose not to use all of it, as the various social networks - I just don't want to be that connected to the world. If this event had another name, I might have attended. I'm one of those who associates "hackers" with something very bad and potentially dangerous. Glad to learn this is not what is behind this event.
Midtown
on Apr 2, 2012 at 1:44 pm
on Apr 2, 2012 at 1:44 pm
to @ Silicon-Valley-Is-About-Innovation
Hackers did not stop, it moved. It's alive and well.
South of Midtown
on Apr 2, 2012 at 3:24 pm
on Apr 2, 2012 at 3:24 pm
I never know when Palo Alto is joking, or when it's being serious. The truth in this community is often stranger than fiction.
This article was in the Daily Post last Saturday. But the Post only reports half of its stories accurately, as a rule. So I thought for sure this sounded like an April Fool's Day prank, until I saw today's Post cover photo, and the article about the event.
The City was a sponsor? I too, wonder why this wasn't reported anywhere else, and sooner. One would think the Weakly would have reported this last week. But then, the City is one of the Weakly's biggest advertisers, from what I hear, so perhaps it was beneficial to everyone fo this to go unreported prior to the day of the event, keeping those that complain about everything away.
I like the name as it is. I, like Rich Placone, associate "hackers" with something bad. But anyone that would show up to this event, and participate, is a good hacker, a cooperative hacker, a thinking hacker. Not devious and secretive.
Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Apr 2, 2012 at 5:45 pm
on Apr 2, 2012 at 5:45 pm
> I too, wonder why this wasn't reported anywhere else, and sooner.
It was reported in the on-line blog "Tech-Crunch" about two weeks ago. Tech-Crunch is kind of an "insider's" blog, so not too many people outside the Silicon Valley "glitteratti" read it.
If there is continued interest, maybe the sponsors will do a better job of getting the word out in the future.
Midtown
on Apr 3, 2012 at 11:25 am
on Apr 3, 2012 at 11:25 am
Ah but it was advertised online and it was talked about beforehand in the Palo Alto Weekly.
The registration filled up very quickly.
My only complaint is that it expected one to use Facebook, to register - but if you by choice have decided not to use Facebook for personal or business reasons ,then it was difficult, but not impossible to do. ( Contrary to their wishes, Facebook, Twitter, Google and all of the other social networks connected via oauth are not the official identity source of the world inhabitants nor should they be the only registration option offered. What this event did illustrate is the preferences and / or prejudices of the event organizers.
BTW - Just for the record - my body may have aged, but the brain still works just fine. Not every older person living in Palo Alto has been left in the paper world. Who do you all think invented so much of the underlying technology then and now in Silicon Valley and elsewhere ? Old does not mean stupid, slow and technophobic.