If any of you attended the TEN Conference in Columbus, Indiana, Brad Wisler, actually listed off six elements he believes are essential for a startup/tech community. The elements are creative culture, education, heroes and soldiers, sense of place, organized capital, and culture of risk. Bloomington and Indy have all of these elements. So we’re ready to take off but what’s the next step?

Getting more people involved is the next step. Many people in both Indy and Bloomington work very hard to put Indiana on the map as a tech hotspot. With groups like Verge, BloomTech, and events like The Combine, many of these heroes, soldiers, and risk takers, are brought together. These events and groups need to be well marketed because when movers and shakers are together great things happen. People collaborate on their ideas and boom, we have a new startup. Little by little these great ideas can help build the road to a big tech scene, you never know what could be the next Facebook or Groupon.

How can you help? Come to the events, spread the word, just get involved anyway possible. SproutBox, for the past few years, has been working hard to showcase the talent of the Midwest. We can only do so much, we need your help. So stay up-to-date on the events going on in Bloomington and Indy. The Bloomington Tech Partnership keeps the tech event up-to-date on their website. Also make sure to follow SproutBox on twitter and we’ll announce important events.

Upcoming Events:

• 11/9: hYPe: Internet Marketing 101: 5:30pm, Ivy Tech

• 11/10: Geek Dinner: 6:00pm, Greek’s Pizzeria

• 11/18-11/20: Startup Weekend Bloomington: 6:30pm, Ivy Tech

• Every Friday: Tech Lunch: 12pm

• Every other Tuesday: Tech Coffee: 9am, Pourhouse Cafe

Working at home is great, in theory. You wake up, make yourself an omelet (or don’t), pull on some sweats and start the day. There is no wasted time commuting and no meetings to attend. Your boss isn’t checking how often you’re on Facebook or asking questions about your progress. Better yet, there’s no guy with bad body odor playing Michael Bolton in the cubicle next door. Life is sweet.

If only it were that simple. In real life there’s no time for omelets. You’re busy managing multiple tasks and looking for projects on top of a supposedly healthy social life.  But doing quality work takes more than just time. It takes motivation. Some can function from the comfort of their couches or kitchen tables. Others, not so much.

At the local coffee shop you wait 20 minutes for a table, only to find walls with no outlets and a weak wireless connection. Hours later you look at your clock and realize you’ve been there 3 hours and all you have to show for it is an empty latte and nothing done. It’s enough to make you swear off coffee.

Where’s the happy medium? Inspiration comes from surrounding yourself with inspiring people, but nobody likes to be micromanaged.

Hackers in Residence is for freelance developers and designers looking for office space and project opportunities. Use our space in exchange for a fraction of your time to work on projects for our sprouts. You reap the benefits of a laid-back, creative atmosphere while maintaining a constant work flow and access to our resources and networks. Better yet, you can get health care at the SproutBox group rate.

Best of both worlds? We think so.

Interested? See our Opportunities page for more information on how to apply and what we’re looking for.

Participants experienced some of Bloomington’s historical and cultural hotspots, including the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, the Farmers Market, B-Line trail and Indiana University. The event was the perfect opportunity to showcase Bloomington as the perfect oasis for focus and creativity aspiring entrepreneurs need to start a successful business.

The weekend kicked off with an open pitch session at the Box where participants, including ScheduleThing and MyJibe, pitched ideas and recruited extra help for their projects.

Everyone headed to the Memorial Stadium Hall of Champions for TECH cocktail, a networking event featuring our sprout family and their founders. The evening made for great mingling among techies and developers with a little taste of Hoosier football.

The speakers series on Friday was packed with talent and laughs. The lineup included:

Sloane Berrent, Founder of Answer with Action

Ben Huh, CEO of Pet Holdings, Inc. (FAIL Blog, Can Has a Cheezburger?)

Frank Gruber, Co-founder of TECH Cocktail

Neil Patel, Guerrilla Marketer, Co-founder of KISSMetrics & Crazy Egg

Christian Lander, Author of “Stuff White People Like”

Micah Baldwin, CEO & Chief Community Caretaker of Graphic.ly

Chris Wansworth, CEO & Co-founder of GitHub

Brian Gorbett, Architect, Microsoft Developer & Platform Evangelism Division

Michael Showalter, Comedian, Host of CollegeHumor.com’s The Michael Showalter Showalter

Michael Ian Black, Comedian, Chief Content Officer at WitStream.com

“More Than Corn,” led by Brad Wisler, was a discussion about the benefits and challenges of tech in the Midwest. Panelists discussed why Bloomington is the place to be to start a web-based company and why it is much more than your average college town.

DevDerby was a day-long challenge for teams to develop an app to serve a need using the programming language of their choice—PHP, C#, Ruby, Python and Java. The rest of the weekend was reserved for hands-on training from experts in Adobe ColdFusion, followed by talks on “Experience in Design for Startups” and “Conversion Optimization” led by James Paden and Kristian Andersen.

I’m thrilled to see such an amazing event held here in Bloomington. All participants and volunteers worked very hard to inspire growth and creativity to the Bloomington tech community. You don’t have to be on the West Coast to be a part of the startup action, and I think The Combine proved just that.