When we started our Nashville-based technology consulting firm Atiba all the way back in 1992, the tech services world was relatively simple. When a business needed tech help, they simply opened The Yellow Pages and looked under “Computer Consultants” to hire any one of the dozen or so Nashville IT consulting firms to solve all their problems.
Whether you needed a network setup, a custom software application, or your printer fixed, most computer consultants and even retail computer stores did it all. With a limited number of operating systems, database platforms, programming languages, and hardware brands, life as a computer consultant was good.
But as is often the case with technology, things moved quickly.
With the rise of the internet, the complexity of technology as well as the demand for technical solutions grew along with it. Before you knew it, businesses needed much more than just computers, networks, and printers to operate. With needs expanding into everything from websites, to email systems, to mobile apps, to cloud computing, to big data, you name it— implementing and supporting technology got more complicated.
We decided to respond to the complexity curve by building a “dream team” of IT professionals, network engineers, software developers, web designers, business analysts, and project managers to help our customers meet their tech needs. Focused on being a one-stop-shop for tech help, we started on a journey of perpetual learning.
But learning in the tech world, as it turns out, is not just about the tech.
Somewhere along the line, we began referring to ourselves as “half-geek-half human.” We realized that the human side of our business was equally as important as the geek side. We decided that as individuals and as a company, we wanted to grow our human side in the same way we’ve always nurtured our geek skills.
But how?
We’d noticed over the years that the clients we had the toughest time serving were the nonprofit agencies around town.
Tech is hard. With the limited budgets that most nonprofit organizations are constrained by, they are often unable to afford to pay for the technical they need to meet their missions.
So, in the spirit of being innovative and thinking outside the box, we decided to grow our half-human side and launch what’s now known in the Nashville tech community as GeekCause.
GeekCause is a group of local geek volunteers who donate their time and skills to Nashville’s not-for-profit community to help them solve their challenges. Nonprofits who need computer help simply reach out to GeekCause to be matched with a tech volunteer that can help them solve their problems at no cost.
We started small, with just a few volunteers, but with the guidance of Pete Bird and Corinne Bergeron from The Frist Foundation, we partnered with the volunteerism experts at Hands On Nashville to take GeekCause to new heights. As of this writing, GeekCause has over 300 Nashville tech volunteers who have donated thousands of hours to help nonprofits all over the city.
The spirit of innovation has always been central to Nashville’s success as a city. Our community has a history of solving hard problems in new ways, and the best ideas often come from unique connections of smart, well intentioned people. Although tech may be hard and complex, when you combine the skillset of our city’s geeks with the humans doing good work all over Nashville, GeekCause has shown us that we CAN do hard things.
