Communications of the ACM
Hacker Dojo Sparks Ideas and Tinkering
Members at work in the Parlor Room of the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, Calif.
Credit: Nhat V. Meyer / Mercury News
The sign on the nondescript industrial building by a Highway 237 offramp still calls it a glass company, but inside is a throwback to that seminal band of Silicon Valley hackers who created the world's first personal computers. Welcome to Hacker Dojo, a "community center" for code monkeys, startup dreamers and anybody else with an unquenchable thirst to take technology in new directions.
A typical evening at the Dojo in Mountain View, CA, sometimes looks like chaos — two friends cobbling together a robot out of chips, circuit boards and servo motors; a clump of technical writers packed like sweaty sardines into a meeting; people squinting silently into their laptops, oblivious to the coming night.
But the nearly-2-month-old, one-of-a-kind Dojo already has the support of valley heavyweights. Google and Microsoft are financial sponsors, mindful of the potential value of ideas, relationships and businesses that could be born here. "This is a place where those who are passionate about creating things, who want to create something bigger than themselves, can come to meet other people like themselves," says Brian Klug, one of the founders of the Dojo.
From San Jose Mercury News
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