The next Geek Dinner on Wednesday, March 21st, will feature a presentation by https://florafox-chl.ru/, who’s been at the center of Providence Geeks since its inception. Tom also gets points for having the best title of any presentation yet:

SchoolTool: Managing an International, Philanthropically Funded Open Source Project from a  Victorian in Elmwood

How did a former Providence school teacher end up working for a South African entrepreneur/philanthropist/cosmonaut, managing programmers in Lithuania and users in Nepal?  SchoolTool is a project to create free
administrative software for schools around the world, written in
Python and Zope 3, funded by Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth.  We’ll
take a look at the software itself as well as the unique advantages and
challenges of free software philanthropy.

Details and RSVP here.

Wow. Major congratulations to Providence native Angus Davis for successfully selling Tellme to Microsoft! Alright, Angus, you did it – no more excuses now for missing Geek Dinners.  ;-)

Mass High Tech has the details.

What is it with robots in Rhode Island this spring? Check it:

• BIF, STAC, Tech Collective, and NEIT have partnered with uber-inventor Dean Kamen’s FIRST to make Rhode Island the first state with a statewide robotics challenge-The Vex Challenge Tournament. On Saturday, March 31^st, over thirty high school robotics teams from across the state will bring small robots they have designed and built to the New England Institute of Technology in Warwick to compete head-to-head and see who will represent the state next month at the national FIRST VEX tournament in Atlanta. Adult volunteers are needed to serve as judges and referees to make this day a success—that’s us, Geeks! More details here.
• Having won the state’s first LEGO League robotics competition in January, the Engineers of Tomorrow, a team of 10-13 year-old Rhode Islanders who design, build and program LEGO robots, will proceed to the FIRST World Festival in Atlanta, April 11-15, 2007.
• The Old Fashion Robotic Store, a “shop focused on computer controlled robotics for hobbyists,” has recently opened on Cedar Street in Providence. Some of you no doubt met shop owner and new Providence Geek James Tabele at the last Geek Dinner.

Wow, have to post these more often. The latest from the Providence Geeks ad-hoc job board:

• Embolden Design seeks a Web Developer
• Location Inc. seeks a Senior Web Developer
• Bay Computer seeks an Engineer EE and/or CS
• Plexus Corporation seeks a Web Application Developer
• InsureMyTrip.com seeks a Graphics/Web UI Designer
• Providence Plan seeks a Network Admin/Analyst
• A Providence advertising agency seeks a Web Developer
• CODAC Behavioral Care seeks a Computer Technician/Generalist
• Noosphere Networks seeks a Senior Web Developer

And remember you can always post jobs for free as long as they are are 1.) local and 2.) geeky. Just register here.

Pay-per-click advertising as enabled by services like Google’s AdWords has been credited with much of the recent resurgence in the Internet industry. Providence Geeks Soren Ryherd and Vida Jakabhazy lead Working Planet Marketing Group, a Providence-based industry front-runner in providing a truly quantitative approach to optimize pay-per-click advertising.

At the February 28th Geek Dinner, Soren will be talking about how Working Planet uses custom statistical modeling to remove risk and insure profitability for industry-leading clients like Iron Mountain and Webmail.us. Working Planet will also be giving details on “Project Kirkland�, their 2007 development initiative.

Bonus Link: The Providence Business News recently did a profile on Working Planet(note that contrary to the caption, the article’s photo is not of Soren and Vida. It’s been updated.)