Tech communities find free weekend space in corporate offices

The office of eGovernments Foundation in Koramangala follows a shape-shifting routine. On weekdays, it is business as usual, which has to do with urban governance. During weekends, it morphs into a conference room, the workstations and furniture shoved to the sidelines

The office of eGovernments Foundation in Koramangala follows a shape-shifting routine. On weekdays, it is business as usual, which has to do with urban governance. During weekends, it morphs into a conference room, the workstations and furniture shoved to the sidelines. It does the latter pro bono for tech community groups aligned with its goals.

One of the beneficiaries of eGovernments Foundation, the Bengaluru chapter of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), has had two weekend meetups to its name at this address.

Generosity of this kind is getting more widespread than one might first assume. The FOSS has held meet-ups at the offices of Razorpay, MapleLabs, Dukaan, and Accel Launch pad (all in Koramangala) as well.

Initially, start-ups in Koramangala and HSR Layout seemed to be driving this trend. With large multinational tech firms, some located in IT parks, also joining in, the trend has a more expansive surface area. A noticeable number of companies in Outer Ring Road, BTM Layout, and Indiranagar are into it.

“A Japanese company was setting up base in Bengaluru and they reached out to us to host a meet-up in their new office space,” says Nayyan Mujadiya, one of the organisers of SwiftBengaluru. Swift is a programming language for developing apps for Apple devices.

Knowledge sharing in its essence, these meet-ups benefit the host as much as the tech group. For tech enthusiasts, it is a platform to network, understand the latest buzz in the industry, learn and adopt from the best practices from other companies. For the host company, it is about picking up evolving trends and also adding social value its brand. And of course, it is also about putting oneself in a position to tap talent.