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Efforts to make the CodeMash tech conference more accessible to Midwesterners led to a more family-friendly event that includes attendees’ children.
Years ago, when tech executive Brian Prince was making the rounds as a speaker and attendee at industry conferences, he had a realization: These events were simply out of reach for many of his colleagues near his home in the Great Lakes region. They were often too expensive and required extensive travel and time away from their families. Why not, he thought, bring a conference to them instead?
In 2007, Prince did just that, launching CodeMash in Ohio, designed to give early-career and experienced technologists “a world-class technical conference” built around high-quality content on “current practices, methodologies, and technology trends in a variety of platforms and development languages” — without a high price tag, he told Convene.
KidzMash activities for attendees’ children introduce them to the world of tech.
“Our values are accessibility and affordability,” said Prince. “Our goals are to keep the ticket prices as low as possible.” Using volunteers — a mix of colleagues in the professional developer community and college students who are on break during the event in January — to run the event helps keep overhead costs down.
Prince chose to hold CodeMash at Kalahari in Sandusky, Ohio, a resort brand known for its indoor waterparks and family-friendly atmosphere, over a typical convention facility (which Prince said feels like meeting at a “sterile airport”). The waterpark venue turned out to be such an attraction for attendees’ families that, after three or four years, a volunteer launched KidzMash, an offshoot of their namesake event designed just for them.
KidzMash “quickly grew” to be something “beyond just playtime and story time,” Prince said. “We said, ‘Well, if people are bringing their kids, they might want to expose them to this tech stuff that their parents are doing.’” Today, CodeMash and KidzMash have evolved from that inaugural one-day event in 2007 with 200 attendees to a four-day conference with 2,500. KidzMash is run by its own team of volunteers as a free “family track” with a full lineup of educational “Sessionz” and a “Makerz” space for hands-on learning activities, like 3D printing.
Children must be accompanied by a guardian, so KidzMash is not a substitute for child care, but Prince said it creates an opportunity for the families of CodeMash attendees to participate in the experience beyond just enjoying the resort’s waterpark. KidzMash participants have their own space, their own badges, and their own conference T-shirts, Prince said, and are invited to join most CodeMash after-hours activities. For kids ages 12 and older, more rigorous options — like two-hour-long “Divez” sessions — allow them go deeper into tech topics.
CodeMash and KidzMash have been so successful that Prince and his team are in the early phases of launching another edition in the Washington, D.C., area. “CodeMash East,” he said, will follow the same model, to be held at a Kalahari property under development. “We’ll start small, and if the community likes it, we’ll grow it bigger.” .
Jennifer N. Dienst is senior editor at Convene.
Nurturing Young Talent
KidzMash is just one way CodeMash organizers like to connect young people with technology. The conference’s outreach program offers scholarships as well as complimentary conference attendance to local students from disadvantaged high schools. Besides attending sessions, the students also get the chance to speak with recruiters about careers in tech.
“They get exposed to what it’s like to be in the tech space,” CodeMash president and co-founder Brian Prince said. “It’s not always going to a four-year university — there are bootcamps and other ways of getting in. And we support all of that.”
On the Web
Learn more about CodeMash and KidzMash, which will be held Jan. 14-17, 2025, at CodeMash.