About the NYJavaSIG

The New York Java Special Interest Group (NYJavaSIG) is based in New York City and attracts Java developers from the tri-state region. Through its regular monthly general meetings, bi-monthly specialty workgroup meetings, and its website, the NYJavaSIG brings together members of New York’s Java community so they can share their tips, techniques, knowledge, and experience.

The NYJavaSIG was founded in 1995 by Frank Greco;  it started as a small special-interest-group (SIG) of the then much larger NY Sun Local User Group (NYSLUG). Frank delivered the first Java tutorial (along with Scott Oaks) way back on September 21, 1995, at the Equitable Center in midtown Manhattan. That afternoon, we had 5 members in the nascent Java user community.  As interest in Java grew quickly, the JavaSIG became more extensive than the NYSLUG, so we changed gears, pointed the sysadmins in the group towards the Linux group, and officially became the NYJavaSIG (we kept the “SIG” as an homage to other thriving user communities before us that used the term).   Today, there are well over 8,500 members in the NYJavaSIG, with over 1,500 subscribers to our YouTube channel. We currently average over 50 attendees per monthly meeting (pre-COVID, we averaged 125-150). The Java developers who attend the NYJavaSIG’s regular meetings come to hear the latest about Java Technology from innovative technologists and industry leaders.  Some of these presenters are NYJavaSIG members themselves!

The NYJavaSIG general meeting is usually held once a month.  Our monthly meeting host locations are always posted on our website.  Of course, now our meetings are all virtual (and recorded if the speaker allows us).   We’ve met for the past few years at Credit Suisse at 24th St and Park Avenue South.  Credit Suisse has been a good friend to the Java community, and we thank them for their support.  We’ve also met at Viacom, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Pivotal Labs.  Our hands-on workgroup (Java Hands-On Workshop – Java HOW) meets bi-monthly at various locations averaging 40-80 attendees).  In the past, we have also met regularly at Google and SunMicrosystems/Oracle.

We welcome Java developers, technical managers, webmasters, new media artists, network administrators, and anyone else with an interest in Java Technology. Past industry speakers include well-known Java Technology experts such as Arthur van Hoff, Jim Waldo, Scott Oaks, Henry Wong, Doug Lea, Calvin Austin, Guy Steele, David Sherr, Brian Goetz, Pratik Patel, Josh Bloch, Justin Lee, Gil Tene, James Ward, Karl Jacobs, Peter Bell, Ethan Henry, Nat Wyatt, Roman Stanek, Anne Thomas-Manes, Simon Phipps, Jeanne Boyarsky, Reza Rahman, Fabiane Nardon, Peter Haggar, Max Goff, Maurice Balick, Gavin King, Jonathan Nobels, Bob Pasker, Rinaldo DiGiorgio, Steve Ross-Talbot, Talip Ozturk, John Davies, Rod Johnson, Bert Ertman, Simon Ritter, Kirk Pepperdine, Matt Raible, Edson Yanaga, Victor Grazi, Chandra Guntur and others.  We even had Penn and Teller!  These influential industry luminaries represent some of the most essential Java Technology organizations on the planet, such as SunMicrosystems/Oracle, IBM, Google, Azul, Pivotal, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Viacom, etc.  Here is a video with a list of all of our past speakers.

The goal of the NYJavaSIG (and of its ancestor, NY Sun Local User Group) has always been to help software engineers, technologists, and technical managers in the NY Metropolitan area stay on the cutting edge.  Our desire and hope have been to strengthen the New York region as a global center for technology and innovation.  Today, when we look up from our screens and connected devices and think of the exciting state of technology and software engineering in the NY metro area after 25 years, we smile and like to think we participated by playing a tiny part in the growth of this vibrant technical community.

Frank