Because Working Together is More Fun for Everyone.

It’s that time of year again, when productivity plummets and everyone’s attention turns to college basketball. And I can think of no better way to celebrate the tournament than with your Jelly buddies.

Jelly’s annual March Madness bracket is open to everyone – all it takes is $5 (sent to sean DOT johnson AT gmail DOT com via Paypal) and you’re in. The person with the lowest score gets their money back, the winner takes the rest. Should be an awesome time.

SocialDevCamp and OfficePort are hosting a special Tech Thursday on March 4th to provide SocialDevCamp attendees with an opportunity to catch up. They’ll be showing highlights from the last event, and there will be an update from some of the Hackathon participants on the status of their applications. Food and drinks will be provided.

RSVP here.

The $5 cover charge will benefit the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago’s TechGYRLS and TechGYRLS Advanced clubs. These innovative, after-school programs are designed to broaden girls’ knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.

Event details
OfficePort CHI
9 W. Washington St, Chicago
Thursday March 4, 6:00-9:00
(Presentation starts at 7:00)
Cost: $5.00

The Jelly Happy Hour is getting started once again. This Friday, February 12th, join the Jelly clan at Clark Street Ale House for great beer and some great conversation. The fun starts at 6:00pm. Hope to see you there!

Read more about the Clark Street Ale House.

Jelly friend and Barcamp Chicago founder Jason Rexelius is heading down to Haiti to support relief efforts there. Along with Todd Huffman, they will be working to support inSTEDD.org as well as to deploy a project that will allow Haitians to use commodity cell phone technology to gather information and intelligence for relief agencies on the ground as well as the press abroad.

The project will allow ordinary Haitians to report on road blockages, gang activities, looting, distribution of supplies and availability of food and water. This information will be fed directly into the information systems of the big relief organizations to enable them to direct their efforts.

They are raising $10,000 and gather as many Android-based smartphones (with camera and GPS capability) as possible. Toward that end, Jason and Todd are hosting a fundraising event on Wednesday, Jan 27th from 5:30-7:30PM at English Bar & Restaurant in River North.

They will have the 2nd floor and Jason will talk in more detail about what they’re doing and collect and contributions and donations – cash, checks, phones, etc. All donations over $250 are tax-deductible since InSTEDD is a registered 501(c)(3) charitable organization.

You can also provide donations via 2 other methods:

1. Via PayPal/GoogleCheckout at http://instedd.org/donate There is no way to specify the project on this page and so email Jason@hostedlabs.com the name of the donating entity and the amount so those funds are earmarked for this project.
2. Via check, payable to:
   inSTEDD
   480 S. California Ave, Suite 104
   Palo Alto, CA 94306

   Add on the comment of check “TODD-JASON-HAITI” and email jason@hostedlabs.com so he can tell them how much to expect.

Tech The Halls, our annual holiday party, turned out to be a great success – we had over 150 people show up for the event and raised $150 for Cabrini Connections. If you couldn’t make it out this year, we hope to see you in 2010!