About Handmade Cities
Sponsor-free tech events
100% indie. We reject sponsorship deals because we must be allowed to criticize anyone’s software. Accepting “free” bags of money destroys our ability to change the software industry.
An obligation to software quality
Our industry’s incentives erode ownership to extract rent from consumers. We’ve abandoned the love for our craft, the user’s quality of experience, and their right to privacy.
Self-host wherever possible
Essential services for our conferences and meetups are processed in-house. For example, our servers personally generate your conference ticket—removing spying middlemen like Ticketmaster.
Direct funding approach
We grow through obvious means, funded primarily through ticket sales, followed by independent donations and fixed-rate booth rentals: straightforward, mom-and-pop transactions.
Founder
Abner Coimbre
Abner is founder of Handmade Cities and the sole organizer for our conferences.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he was mentored by Kennedy Space Center on how they make software. After winning NASA’s Intern of the Year, Abner penned an essay on their programming philosophy: featured in the news. He was subsequently promoted to launch control engineer.
Abner started the Handmade Network, an online community learning to make quality software. He went on to work under Jonathan Blow followed by Cyan Worlds to ship the Myst Remake.
Now in his early thirties, Abner’s concern for declining software standards—both ethical and technical—pushed him to become a community organizer. (He still loves programming though.)