Date: Thursday, September 13, 2007
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Mays Business School - Room 182
GMap: http://tinyurl.com/2cttfn
RSVP not required.

Amazon Web Services will be in town!

What’s cooking at Amazon these days?, What is Amazon Web Services?, Why Amazon Mechanical Turk is named so? What’s so “Elastic” about Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud? What’s the limit of bottom-less hard-drive in the sky (Amazon Simple Storage Service)? What are some of the 265,000+ registered developers of AWS Developer community building?

Let’s find answers to these questions and more.

It all started with Amazon E-Commerce Service (Amazon ECS), when Amazon.com opened its technology and product vault (2002) to developers by exposing the API and gave them the ability to construct powerful innovative applications using the resources the company has built over eleven years and over $2B developing. Since then, Amazon has launched ten new services that provide developers easy access to inexpensive, scalable web-based infrastructure.

In this session, Seattle-based Jinesh Varia, Evangelist for Amazon Web Services, will talk about these innovations from Amazon.com.

Specifically, Jinesh will talk about Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) that allows requisition of machines on-demand by simple web service call, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) which is infinite storage in the sky and Amazon Mechanical Turk which is the Human Intelligence Web service and how these services can help local start-up companies to go live quickly. Also, we will see some exciting apps, built on AWS that have become profitable businesses and others that are just simply cool to see.

So bring your open minds fully charged, as this session will be interactive and might spur up your thought-liquid for the next ‘Eureka!’ moment.

Presenter
JINESH VARIA, EVANGELIST, AMAZON WEB SERVICES
As a Web Services Evangelist at Amazon, Jinesh Varia helps developers take advantage of disruptive technologies that are going to change the way we think about computer applications, and the way businesses compete. He is focused on furthering awareness of web services and often helps developers on 1:1 basis in implementing their own ideas using Amazon’s innovative services.
Jinesh has over 7 years experience in XML and Web services and has worked with standard working groups in XBRL. Prior to joining Amazon as an evangelist, he held several positions in UBmatrix including Solutions Architect, Enterprise Team Lead and Software engineer, working on various XBRL-based financial services projects including Call Modernization Project at FDIC. He was also lead developer at Penn State Data Center, Institute of Regional Affairs. Jinesh’s publications have been published in ACM and IEEE. Jinesh is originally from India and holds a Master’s degree in Information Systems from Penn State University. He plays tennis and loves to trek.

I have yet to attend a BarCamp so you could guess how excited I am. It’s going to be a great time full of laughs, tears, and a lot of learning. Those would be good tears by the way. If ANYONE is interested in attending, we are getting a group together to show Houston what Bryan/College Station can bring to the table. There are lots of great talents in Houston so the networking opportunities are amazing. Be there or be square (even though squares are cool too). For more information, email us and we will get back with you asap. THANKS!

Date: Wednesday - August 22
When: 7:00PM
Where: The Creative Space - 219 N. Main - 5th Floor - Downtown Bryan

Come mingle with other Refreshers and check out the Creative Space. An office space for like-minded individuals to collaborate and share ideas.

Interactive Portion (sort of)

Did you know that the gross private and public investment commitment in Downtown Bryan through Q4 2008 is $50,000,000.00? True.

Please RSVP on Upcoming if you think you can make it.

Date: Wednesday, July 11, 2007
When: 7:00PM
Where: La Salle Hotel, Downtown Bryan

RefreshBCS is proud to announce that Whurley will be visiting Bryan/College Station on Wednesday, July 11th at 7PM at the La Salle Hotel located in downtown Bryan. He will be talking about technology, open source software, and how the open-source philosophy applies to the way we live and work. This should be lighter on technical things, and heavier on culture and creativeness. You don’t have to be a software developer to understand what Whurley will be talking about.

Whurley’s Bio:
William Hurley is the Chief Architect of Open Source Strategy at BMC Software, Inc. Also known as “whurley”, he is responsible for creating BMC’s open source agenda and overseeing the company’s participation in various free and open source software communities to advance the adoption and integration of BSM solutions. A technology visionary and holder of 11 important patents, whurley brings 16 years of experience in developing groundbreaking technology. He is the Chairman of the Open Management Consortium, a non-profit organization advancing the adoption, development, and integration of open source systems management. Named an IBM Master Inventor, whurley has received numerous awards including an IBM Pervasive Computing Award and Apple Computer Design Award.

Date: June 27, 2007 @ 7:00PM
Location:Varisco Building 219 N. Main (Bryan) [Map]
Topic: Google is coming!!!
RSVP is required

Hi folks, RefreshBCS would like announce that Google is coming to Bryan/College Station to speak to the community on Wednesday, June 27th at 7PM. FIBERTOWN has arranged for us to meet in the beautiful Varisco Building located in downtown Bryan at 219 N. Main. The folks from Google will be speaking about their product line, services, and what may lie down the road as Google continues to amaze us. A full meal from Square One Bistro will be provided by 372 Media. Please RSVP so an accurate amount of food can be prepared. We expect quite a few people will show up and we want to make sure we have enough chairs and food for everyone.

Date: June 13, 2007 @ 7:00PM
Location: Hawthorn Suites Conference Center [map]
Topic: Service Oriented Architecture: A Mashup Culture

Ben Floyd (Texas A&M) will be talking about the move to Service Oriented Architecture, and software as a service. Mashups are becoming very popular in high tech society today as a way to lower development costs and leverage social intelligence. Talk of the semantic web has fueled a new generation of thinkers to combine silos of information into much more powerful networks of software systems.

For the presentation Ben will talk about some of the more popular web service providers such as Google, Yahoo, and Amazon, and describe how they and others are using their services. Ben will also talk about SOA in corporate environments such as HP, IBM and Dell. Ben will also cover things like Flickr, YouTube, blogs, wikis, RSS, etc. Some of them are coming up with ways to link their information together in a SOA-ish way.

This event is sponsored by Freebirds.

Also, this is a free event, no RSVP required.

*UPDATE*
Presentation & Source Files

Date/Time: May 9, 2007 - 7:00PM
Where: Margarita Rocks (sideroom)
Speaker: Roby Fitzhenry
Topic: Design is _______ - A presentation on design, it’s importance, and how to use it to it’s fullest potential.
RSVP: upcoming.org

Design Is _____ PDF Flyer

Wow. May 9th is coming faster than I expected. If there is anything anyone wants mentioned, let me know and I will try to fit it in. To add to the excitement, 372 will most likely be giving away things like a Square One Bistro gift card, an Activist Apparel t-shirt, and maybe a few more printed goods. I truly look forward to speaking from my soul to all who make it out. This is an opportunity of a lifetime and I plan to present it as such. See you soon!

Date/Time: April 11, 2007 - 7:00PM
Where: Margarita Rocks
Speaker: Erica O’Grady
Topic: The Flight of the Creative Class - Including Co-Working, what it means to be a Creative, and how to harness new talent.
RSVP:… on upcoming.org