Congratulations and many thanks to the organizing committee and volunteers for the first ever Drupal Camp Chicago, held last weekend at the University of Illinois at Chicago's new Innovation Center.  The event was a smashing success with over 140 attendees sharing, learning, and networking under the watchful gaze of the pumpkin-themed Druplicon. Attendees came from all over the country, including hobbyists and freelancers as well as developers from such shops as Achieve Internet, Duo Consulting, Lullabot, Palantir.net, and Trellon.  CTC team members presented on Drupal theming (David Eads) and GIS/mapping (Rebecca White).  

In addition to being one of the primary sponsors, CTC organized and conducted our 2nd "Code for a Cause" event at DrupalCamp.  CTC's Dave Chakrabarti led a volunteer development effort to builda prototype for  Skoolade.org, an online repository of educational resources for parents and teachers working with students with autism. Working with Christopher Flint from the local nonprofit AACTION Autism, Dave and fellow conference attendees built a Drupal based site that allows users to upload, categorize, rate, and share autism resources.  The site was built using Drupal 6 with extensive CCK and Views2 work.  Skoolade volunteers will now begin populating the site with resources to make it useful for the autism community around the world.

Beyond the event itself, DCC will have a few powerful lasting benefits: helping grow and strengthen the Chicago and greater Midwest Drupal community,  helping CTC further develop and improve our pro bono Code for a Cause project, and hopefully demonstrating to the Drupal community that Chicago is a strong and viable candidate city for a potential DrupalCon US 2010 bid.