Born out of a Philadelphia bar in the wake of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, the conversation perhaps echoing similar sentiments from 240 years prior🧓👴🧓
A handful of activists who found one another through the Coders for Sanders group met in person to determine where they should focus their energy⚡next.
While disappointed about the outcome of the primary, the group had seen both the power of big moneyed interests🤑and the potential of open source technology.
Based on that, progcode’s original mission to remove money’s influence in politics by empowering the grassroots⚖️with open source technology was born👶
Though progcode was born from the Coders for Sanders group, the community quickly evolved beyond not only candidates or parties but transcended ♾️ politics itself.
We quickly appreciated the political system’s negative ➖ impact evident on all of society.
Like an explosion, the community rapidly grew through word of mouth🗣️, as a multidisciplinary group formed to not only discuss ideas💡but turn them into reality.
Unlike other communities, progcode has always been decentralized🕸️, with project contributors working autonomy.
In the following months, projects moved through the development lifecycle as a global team of passionate volunteers worked tirelessly to create solutions driving a positive impact. 🧑🏭
From room🛖and ride🏎️sharing to independent media🎞️and environmental🎄monitoring, progcode community projects quickly expanded beyond money in politics and into general society.
Beyond projects like Spoke, OptOut News and Envirotrack, progcode has also had an influential role in influencing and supporting broader societal movements🚡.
This has included technology development for the Women’s March👯♀️and the Dakota Access Pipeline🪈protests at Standing Rock.
Nearly eight years since progcode’s original formation, eight years none of us are sadistic🤪enough to have predicted, we realize that our system’s root issue isn’t big money’s influence in politics.
The root issue is the system itself, functioning exactly as designed. 💩💩💩
And so, while our purpose has remained, we now approach the latter half of the 20s with a refined mission:
To open source a modern means of production
⌨️🔨
by influencing and contributing to the creation of The Public Cloud. 🌥️