A tech community is a great place to meet like-minded people, learn, and share what you’re working on.
Tech communities foster knowledge among people with similar roles, or interests in developing specific skills. They are a useful way to find competent and passionate people who share your interest in specific technologies. You can then tap into these valuable resources to speed up your learning curve and explore new ideas.
Vizlib helps customers around the world supercharge their data analytics. In this article, we list some of the top tech communities from around the globe that focus on everything from coding languages to demographics. We also steer you in the right direction to get involved with the communities that best suit your needs.
Why join a tech community?
With the tech industry employing 12.2 million people in the U.S. alone, it’s not surprising that so many tech professionals engage with, and contribute to, such a wide variety of tech communities around the world.
Tech communities offer a brilliant opportunity for you to collaborate and innovate with people who have similar interests. They not only give members a sense of community, they also allow like-minded people to support each other, and grow in their career.
Here’s how joining a tech community will benefit you:
Professional development
Getting involved in a tech community demonstrates dedication to your career. It shows potential employers that you are interested in developing your knowledge. Tech communities give you high visibility among recruiters – giving you the chance to unlock opportunities.
Follow your passion
Tech communities help you develop skills in areas you’re enthusiastic about. Even if your interest is very specific or niche, you’re bound to find a tech community to support you.
Make connections
Being a member of a tech community allows you to meet other tech professionals within your particular industry. Community involvement is a perfect opportunity to network, innovate and collaborate with like-minded people. Many community events are now virtual, so joining in is even easier.
Community support
Tech communities are more than just a place to talk about the latest technologies and industry news. They also allow members to share their experiences and support each other.
Online tech communities
We’ve handpicked just a few of the biggest online tech communities you can join right now.
Indie Hackers
Indie Hackers is a forum for founders and makers. As of writing, some of its fastest-growing groups are on the topics of Branding, Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The community also hosts regular meetups, both online and in person.
This Week in Startups Slack
This tech community started as a forum for fans of the This Week in Startups podcast. Since then, TWiST Slack has become a vibrant community in its own right. It has channels for everything from fundraising to sharing your small wins – and boasts over 10,000 members.
Product Hunt discussions page
Product Hunt Discussions describes its members as mostly “makers, founders, and product nerds”. They have an active discussions page, which is a great place to get advice and see what other makers are working on.
Pioneer
Pioneer is an online accelerator that you take part in by providing weekly updates that are voted on by the rest of the community. Pioneer can get your startup seen by other founders on a weekly basis – and receive regular feedback on your work. They also have a forum called Frontier, which posts regular tech and startup news.
Tech community meet-ups
There are huge tech communities all over the world that regularly meet up in person. Here are just a few of the biggest.
NY Tech Alliance
NY Tech Alliance is the world’s largest tech community meetup. This non-profit organisation holds monthly meetups in New York City, and features live demos from New York tech companies. Their mission is to “represent, inspire, support, and help lead the New York technology community and ecosystem to create a better future for all“.
Women Who Code
This global female-only tech community has made its mission “to inspire women to excel in technology careers”. The Women Who Code tech community has 81 meetup groups worldwide, from Belfast to Bangalore.
STHLM TECH
STHLM TECH is a meet-up community based in the tech hub of Stockholm. This tech community hosts the largest monthly startup event in Europe. Each event brings hackers, entrepreneurs, investors, and designers together under one roof, and showcases three pitching startups.
Find your tech community
The sheer number and variety of tech communities available can be daunting, so where do you begin? Here are just some ways you can get started looking for a community to suit you.
- Answer questions online – Head to your forum site of choice and share your expertise.
- Engage with Twitter – It’s a great place to gain visibility. Start responding to tweets you find insightful, or share some of your own.
- Get blogging – Writing about your work can have a huge impact. Also, seek out blogs that interest you. If, like us here at Vizlib, you have an interest in data visualisation, check out some of the best dataviz blogs.
- Meet-ups – As mentioned above, meetups are a great way to connect locally. Seek out meetups near you and give them a try.
Discover data visualisation tech communities
There are countless tech communities and seemingly countless ways to find the right one for you.
If, like us, data visualisation is your thing, the Data Visualization Society might be a good place to start. It was founded to connect those working across the discipline, and welcome newcomers into this growing, dynamic field. Get in touch!
