Hubs

Buffalo is a rust belt city. Long ago it was a hub of industry, near the Erie Canal, on the St. Lawrence Seaway and a major rail stop directly between Chicago and New York City. Buffalo hosted factories and grain elevators.

When Manufacturing left America, it left Buffalo.

Today Silicon valley is the business mecca of America, possibly of the world. There is no particular geography that lends itself to high tech business, but when one company after another starts up in an area, it becomes the easiest place to hire skilled workers, and the easiest place to find work if you have the right skills. With both employees and potential corporate partners flocking to northern California, it becomes difficult to justify starting a company anywhere else.

Any city would be challenged to turn itself into the next Silicon Valley. For Buffalo, a city challenged just to survive, it may seem impossible.

Despite this, there are advantages that our city could leverage to get a leg up in the climb out of obscurity. We have ready access to cheap hydroelectric power and we are already a world leader in the field of bioinformatics.

We still lack a diverse community of high tech workers. This is what Buffalo Hackerspaces can help remedy.

A Hackerspace is a combination of a community workshop and a social/educational venue. It allows people to pursue technical hobbies that they wouldn't have the resources to do otherwise. It gives people a place to share knowledge, collaborate on projects, and use expensive tools and equipment they would not otherwise have access to.

Besides the obvious benefit of potential advances and businesses growing directly out of the work done at the hackerspace, this is a very visible form of hi-tech community. Workers deciding where to relocate will see a place they can go to meet people with similar interests. Employers will see evidence of a pool of highly skilled workers. Recruiters will have another needed talking point for Buffalo.

This process has positive feedback. The more business is in a city, the more reasons other businesses and workers have to come here.