Our Associate Director of Program Management, Lauren Jacobson, and Software Engineer, Kara Leary, were selected as Ambassadors for this year’s Denver Startup Week. They joined 50 tech professionals from around the country to engage with the city's growing tech community. Read more about their experiences below.
One of the great things about working remotely with Thinkful is having colleagues across the country who can give you awesome insight into their local tech communities. At the suggestion of a colleague, I applied for the DSW Ambassador program. The whirlwind of excitement began once Kara and I were accepted.
When we arrived in Denver, on Monday, September 16th, we were quickly oriented to the program and started to understand just how massive the week was going to be.
I’m from Washington, DC (itself a growing tech city), and Kara is from Hawaii. We were both genuinely shocked at how large this event was. It truly took over downtown Denver with over 500+ attendees RSVPing to the hundreds of events happening all week long.
As an Ambassador, I had the opportunity to attend special events with other ambassadors at home-grown Denver companies including Pie Insurance, Evolve Vacation Rental, Guild Education, and Ibotta. We participated in problem solving group sessions to help teams across the company solve larger team issues. At Pie Insurance, this activity resulted in a fierce competition that ended in the losing teams getting pied in the face (they take Pie VERY seriously).
We also had plenty of time to explore downtown Denver, attend Startup Week panels and events (including the very popular Puppy Panel at Choozle), and get to know our fellow Ambassadors.
The final day at DSW featured a GORGEOUS closing party, sponsored by Polsinelli, on an open air rooftop that overlooked Denver and the mountains beyond. I’m so grateful to all the amazing people who made DSW possible – particularly the Downtown Denver Partnership and allowed us the opportunity to become a part of the Denver community for a week.
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