Manoa Geeks @ Oceanit

It was quite an emotional scene at the last Manoa Geeks meetup on Thursday, June 4, 2008. Aaron Dragushan (@dragushan) is moving from Hawaii to Washington D.C. He announced that this would be his last attendance at Manoa Geeks, at least in person. The Manoa Geeks meetups have evolved from small gatherings at Starbuck's in Manoa to standing room only crowds in downtown Honolulu tech companies. The companies, in this case Oceanit, have been gracious to offer up meeting space, wifi access and food! Attendees are encouraged to share an event, showcase a web project or demo a product. It is all quite social and interactive largely due to Aaron's infectious personality. He is always smiling from ear to ear. We are going to miss his positive energy. At this month's meetup, @Phlatphrog (Patrick Kelly) demo'ed his ride sharing website, Ride4all, @SethLadd showed his crowd wisdom (I stole that from Peter Kay) site at Whateverisfinewithme and Curtis Kropar shared a project that is really striving to make a differenct at Hawaiian Hope. Aaron Dragushan topped the evening off by reviewing the latest developments to his Ask500people project. That site has come a long way and I am glad to have gotten to watch its evolution. Aaron will be one of our first guests on Bytemarks Cafe and I am dying to ask him some questions about how he came up with the idea. It is great to see projects like these get their start here in Hawaii. Thank goodness, the Manoa Geeks legacy will continue with @Hawaii who got the baton handed to him from Aaron to keep the meetups happening. @Hawaii wrote a great blog entry with copious notes and twitter contacts. You can also view the current and past photos of Manoa Geeks on Flickr. Stay tune to the next Manoa Geeks meetup coming to a conference room near you.