About Handmade Cities
Sponsor-free tech events
100% indie. We reject sponsorship 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
The 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 job booth rentals: straightforward, mom-and-pop transactions.
Founder
Abner Coimbre
Abner is founder of Handmade Cities and the sole organizer for our conferences.
At a young age 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 for several years and finally Cyan Worlds to ship the Myst remake.
Now in his early thirties, Abner’s mounting concern of declining software standards—both ethical and technical—pushed him to run conferences and grow meetups full-time. (He still loves programming though.)
Our Advisory Board
Zac Nowicki
Tech lead at Kagi Search.
Mary Bush
Seattle indie developer, formerly in logistics/healthcare tech.
Jon Stevens
Senior game developer at Bitshift Entertainment: new studio by Notch, creator of Minecraft.
Matthew Knight
Organizer at Software You Can Love: plus meetups, workshops, and more.
Unlisted Member
Systems programmer, community member, and a friend of Handmade Cities. Values Privacy™
NASA Observer
Hardware engineer at NASA. Observer role, no voting power. Anonymous involvement given the current climate.
Note: The advisory board is comprised of volunteers. Member’s opinions are their own, not their employer’s.
Event Coordinator
Morgan Rammell
Morgan’s done corporate event planning for several years but is now interested in the indie space. She oversees the logistics of running and facilitating Handmade conferences, working with the venue to solve any issues that arise in real-time.
Born and raised in Washington state you’ll find Morgan snowboarding, hiking, camping, and even rock-climbing!
Technical Producer
Phil Homan
Phil Homan, who goes by PH Test, is a Seattle developer with a knack for multidisciplinary work: live-performance visuals, experimental programs, games, and video production—often with tools he made himself!
Phil joined Handmade Cities to help Abner with matters related to streaming, recording, and A/V support at the conferences.
Secretary
Mr. Perkins
Mr. Perkins is our year round part-time assistant, usually plowing through the backlog of texts, emails and invoices.